Economist and political risk analyst, Dr Theo Acheampong, has joined the many academics who say the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy) will make little or no impact on Ghana’s already troubled economy.
According to the Researcher at Aberdeen University, Ghana’s biggest economic problem has been the penchant for governments to run very expensive state machinery.
Commenting on the controversial mobile money and fintech tax that the Nana Akufo-Addo government appears resolute to pass to raise revenue, Dr Acheampong said in a Facebook post on Saturday that unless government institutes proper reforms, no tax regime will be able to bring the economy any respite.
“There are too many leaking holes with very little value for money. We need proper reforms on the expenditure side of the equation, lest we keep pouring into a leaking basket, even with e-levy! I repeat, we have a far bigger EXPENDITURE PROBLEM than a revenue one.
“That's where the focus of our energies must be targeted at. Far too many wasteful expenditures (some due to corruption and others due to significant lapses in the public financial management systems, among others) despite years of so-called structural transformation and reforms,” he said.
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Zooming in on the E-Levy, he said the widely unpopular tax is not the panacea to Ghana’s development woes – as has been suggested by some government communicators.
“That tax [E-Levy] goes against most of the core principles of taxation that I know. What we need is a LEAN and MEAN TECHNOCRATIC STATE,” he stated in the Facebook post.
Also, respected Economist, Prof Lord Mensah, has said a claim by the Finance Minister that Ghana will be headed for economic disaster if E-levy fails to pass is not backed by facts.
According to the Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School, the economy will not see any major change if the electronic tax is passed.
“Whether passed or not [E-levy] will not have much impact on this economy,” he said Friday.
According to him, the government’s expenditure has been increased by GH¢30 billion and over, hence the expected revenue from E-Levy, some GH¢6.9 billion, would not adequately cushion the effects of the increased expenditure.