E-Levy: Mobile Money Operators to demonstrate against Government

0

Mobile Money Operators have threatened to stage a demonstration to amplify the fear of losing their capital after the passage of the E-Levy into law. According to the group, their businesses are run on loans which will be negatively impacted by the implementation of the E-Levy, accented to by President Akufo-Addo a few days ago.

National President of the Mobile Money Agents Association, Dela Abotsi said about 150 thousand agents are likely to go out of business when the E-levy finally becomes operational in May 2022.

After the Bill was passed in Parliament last Tuesday, the Association has said most of its members may shut down their mobile money businesses following the passage of the 1.5% Electronic Transfer Levy.

“We may be tempted to withdraw our services because the service already is not all that lucrative,” the General Secretary for the association, Evans Otumfour, said in a Citi News interview.

Prior, to the passage of the bill by parliament, there was strong public opposition to the levy, seen largely as a punitive and regressive tax that will have very negative impact on the poor since there is already so much hardship in the system.

According to the Payment Systems Data released by the Bank of Ghana in February this year, the total value of mobile money transactions has fallen by GH¢3.2 billion in one month from November to December 2021.

Interestingly, the number of registered mobile money account holders increased from 47.7 million to 48. 3 million, while the number of active mobile money accounts fell from 18 million to 17.9 million within the same period.

The data also shows that the number of registered agents has increased from 570,000 to 580,000 in the same period – that’s from November to December 2021, and the number of active agents grew from 439,000 to 442,000.

The total number of transactions, according to the data also grew from 398 million to 401 million, however, the total value of transactions fell from GH¢86.1 billion in November to GH¢82.9 billion in December – a drop of GH¢3.2 billion.

While the Bank did not assign specific reasons for this drop in the total value of transactions – there is suspicion that it could be attributed to the government’s proposed e-Levy, to be imposed on mostly mobile money transactions. The government was proposing a 1.75 percent tax on transactions in addition to the 1 percent already being charged by the mobile companies. It has since reduced the tax to 1.5 percent.

However, the President, Nana Akufo Addo signed the bill into law on Friday, two days after it was passed despite the minority staging a ‘Walk Out” to prevent its passage.