Vice President for the Mobile Money Association of Ghana, Afful Kojo Augustine, has bemoaned the dire effect the proposed e-levy would have on the mobile money business should it be passed.
He stated that the association has a challenge to resolve with the current service charge of 1%, as Ghanaians in the past have expressed their discontent over the rate. He believes the introduction of 1.75% e-levy poses a great danger to the business.
Mr. Afful believes the controversial e-levy could go a long way to discourage a lot of potential investors and as well make mobile money transaction agents jobless. He drew this conclusion from assessing the reactions of Ghanaians since the proposal was made and fear customers could reverse to the previous way of transaction.
Speaking to Samuel Eshun, host of the Happy Morning Show, the MMAG Vice President said, “To be very honest, should the 1.75% e-levy be passed, our business will no longer exist. We were already facing challenges from customers even with the current service charge of 1%. There has been lots of complaints from customers over the rate but I think we’ve been able to adjust and work with it till this time. As we’re looking forward to improve the security issues, there has been difficulty in getting financial support to back the growth of the business. And as citizens who want to contribute to the digitization agenda and cashless system that the government and Bank of Ghana is trying to push, introducing a tax at this time that we believe would discourage a lot of investors from coming on board to help us expand like we should. We believe that it is not important and we want a total scrap of the e-levy.”
The MMAG Boss also suggested that, government’s narrative to only tax mobile money transactions above Ghc100 is invalid and unrealistic. “Now with our current dispensation, we’re doing over 2billion transactions in a day and over 300 thousand agents are across the length and breadth of the country. That argument that Ghc100 transaction is exempted just because it is taking into consideration the poor is invalid. Even those people are doing more than Ghc100 transaction. Those government is trying to say that it’s protecting them from the fees do more than that. In a day, you have a section of the people, over 70% of those people sending more than Ghc100. The statistics are there and this is simply because of the convenience that we’ve all come to experience with the service,” he added.
The association has warned government of a possible nationwide strike as an attempt to ask government to find other innovative ways to tax the sector which would not cause a great dent to the sector but can also contribute to the expansion and growth of the mobile money business in order to facilitate the digitization agenda.
By: Jude Tackie
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