Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has stated that the record of former President John Dramani Mahama shows that he will not repeal the E-Levy as he has promised if he comes to power.
According to him, Mahama, before he became vice president in 2008, promised that his government will cancel the Communication Service Tax (CST) which was introduced by the John Agyekum Kufour- led government but did not, asaaseradio.com reports.
Oppong Nkrumah added that not only did NDC fail to cancel the CST as promised but it even increased its rate.
“I just want to remind Ghanaians that the last time the NDC and Mahama made a similar statement was when the Communication Service Tax was introduced. He [Mahama] argued against it that the cost of internet and talk time will go up by 8% in Parliament and later joined the late Prof Atta Mills as his running mate to make a promise that they were going to abolish the communication service tax.
“When they won power, they turned around and increased the rate. So, I think there is a clear track record and nobody should be dissuaded by some of these comments,” he is quoted to have said on the Asaase Breakfast show.
The minister said that the performance of the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government in its first three years which saw it deliver most of its promises before the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic shows that it can get the country out of the current challenges.
“… the Ghanaian economy is in safe hands, the 2017 to 2019 window shows us clearly that the NPP and the Akufo-Addo administration had the competencies to bring the Ghanaian economy back on track,” he said.
Speaking at the National Democratic Congress’s ‘Ghana at a Crossroads’ event, former President John Dramani Mahama promised that the Electronic Transfer Levy (E Levy) will be scrapped by the next National Democratic Congress, NDC, government.
According to him, the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government is desperately applying burdensome taxes as a means of curing ills associated with their mismanagement of the economy.
Mahama stressed that even though the NDC did not oppose taxation in principle, “we will not be pretentious and couch fanciful slogans to condemn the principle of taxation like the NPP did in the past.”