E-Levy: ‘Whether passed or not will not have much impact on this economy’ – Economist

E-Levy is to promote ‘political free spending’ – Prof Mensah

Economy will collapse without E-Levy – Finance Minister

E-Levy will bring in only GH¢6.9b by govt needs over GH¢30 billion – Economist

A senior lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School, Prof Lord Mensah, has said contrary to claims of the finance minister the passage of the E-Levy will not have much impact on Ghana’s economy, is not the entire truth.

He said the finance minister's claim that the economy will collapse, should parliament fail to pass the E-Levy Bill was far from the truth.

Speaking on Joy FM’s GhanaConnect which was monitored by GhanaWeb, the economist said the E-Levy “whether passed or not will not have much impact on this economy.”

Prof Lord explained that because government expenditure as stated in the 2020 budget has increased by over GH¢30 billion, revenue generated must increase by the same margin and the E-Levy will bring in only GH¢6.9 billion.

According to him, the E-levy will only enable the government to engage in what he described as politically free expending.

“Looking at the expenditure side of the budget, I mean clearly, you would see that there are some items that have been increased, but then also there is an item called others, which is the 7 billion. Let’s say that is swallowing the proceeds from the e-levy. Now if you take this into perspective, it gives you the picture that the e-levy is something that is coming to, excuse my language, promote that kind of political free spending,” he said.

Ken Ofori-Atta, at the government’s town-hall meeting, to discuss the E-levy on January 27, 2022, said: “So, we can deal with them (the IMF) for them to give us advice but we need not ever get into an IMF programme [again]. If we don’t do this E-levy, we’re just pushing ourselves in a way that would potentially end up in such a disaster,” Ofori-Atta said.