By Rachel Kakraba
Deputy Minister of finance, Dr. John Kumah has justified the decision to stop the collection of road tolls in favour of the implementation of the Electronic levy otherwise known as the E-levy.
He maintains the road toll was a nuisance and inequitable as poor communities were the hardest hit. Speaking on Ghana Television, Dr. John Kumah said government is determined to maintain the E- Levy at 1.75 % saying, any reduction would affect 2022 projections.
“I agree road toll was bringing in some amount of revenue, but we felt replacing it with a higher amount of money that will help us do more roads was better. Seventy-eight percent in the whole year compared to the inconvenience and traffic and the inequity of where the rich people don’t pay and the poor are paying”
Mr. Kumah, encouraged Ghanaians to embrace the levy.
“We will encourage them to continue use it and like I said we should be proud that we are contributing to building our country. It’s not every time that we expect somebody to come and give us handouts, so the little 1.75% we are contributing is what is going to give us the kind of Ghana we want”, he stressed.
Dr. Kumah said a major setback to the education on the policy is entrenched positions taken by some individuals and groups. For him, countries that suffered setbacks with implementation of a similar policy did not engage in broad consultation as in the case of Ghana. He said government has cushioned Ghanaians by asking Telcos to reduce their charges.
“We have engaged the Telcos that have reduced it by 0.25 through the Telcos and we are saying that through that arrangement government gets to keep fiscal expectations so we can do more for the country”.
RELATED POST: https://www.gbcghanaonline.com/news/business/e-levy-john-kumah/2022/
