President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said that over the past year, in particular, Government has implemented a number of policies and programmes all in an attempt to hasten economic recovery from the ravages of COVID-19.
He said the government has introduced measures to improve fiscal consolidation, and ensure debt sustainability, which are critical to achieving macroeconomic stability in the short to medium-term.
“These measures, such as the passage of the E-Levy Bill, have not been introduced in isolation. They have come on the back of a revenue loss of GH¢13.1 billion, and an increased, unbudgeted expenditure of GH¢14.2 billion.
“There is, thus, an overall fiscal impact of some GH¢27.3 billion, representing 6.8% of GDP. In addition to this, adverse global developments have impacted severely on exchange rate and inflation, with the overall effect being the weakening of the real incomes of people in Ghana, just as is happening everywhere. That is why the Secretary-General can justifiably list the litany of woes that are adversely affecting the living standards of working people in Ghana and in the outside world – high inflation, high fuel and petroleum prices, escalating food prices, and reduced income levels,” he said ruing the May Day celebrations on Sunday.
He added “We, thus, have to make concerted efforts as Partners to hasten our recovery from COVID-19 by finding intelligent ways of bringing everyone on board to contribute their quota, no matter how small. Indeed, we have had to cut discretionary expenditures of Ministries, Departments and Agencies by thirty percent (30%), we have reduced the salaries of political appointees by thirty percent (30%) for the rest of the year, reduced their fuel coupon allocation by fifty percent (50%), and placed a moratorium on the purchase of imported vehicles, amongst others.”
Meanwhile, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has issued guidelines for reversal of wrong deductions with respect to the implementation of the e-levy policy which started on Sunday May 1.
The authority in statement said “Under this phased approach it has been decided that all ‘on-net’ and ‘off-net’ transfers including transfer to own account shall be subject to the e-levy.
“This is because of the lack of visibility across all networks due to the phased approach. However, charging entities are to exempt ‘on-net’ transfers between accounts owned by the same person where the identity of the person can be determined”.
The GRA said it is collating all the feed backs to work on them.
Some customers have already reported cases of wrong deductions since the policy started on Sunday.
But Isaac Kwabena Amoako, a member of the e-levy Technical Committee of the GRA said on the News 360 on TV3 Sunday May 1,that “On day one of implementation we have been taking feedbacks.
“The category of feed backs that did not meet our design is the fact that people transferring from one network to another network, for some of them they are being charged.
“That seem to be the most prevalent technical issue that is being reported. We have collated some of these concerns, we are talking to the charging entities so that they correct.
“We believe that between now and the following day some of these of these corrections will be made.”
“We have issued out notices that anyone who has genuine or valid reversals they should listen to them, use the current approach that they use for reversals which is 15 working days to collate these concerns , those who have been wrongfully charged should be refunded,” he added.