The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), has refuted claims that it is not fully ready for the implementation of the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy) from Sunday, May 1st, 2022.
This follows allegations by the Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, Sam George, that the GRA, is not fully prepared to begin the implementation.
Responding to the allegation, the Head of the Tax Policy Unit at the Ministry of Finance, Dan Nuer, said the claims are false
“We are very ready to go ahead and start implementing on 1st May. There are a lot of public notices going around, all talking about 1st May being the day we will introduce the E-levy. We will be using the telco platforms to charge the e-levy to ensure that there is uniformity.”
The Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, Sam George, who’s the Deputy Ranking Member on Parliament’s Communications Committee, said the GRA is yet to meet the necessary requirements for the implementation of the controversial tax.
“My position has been from a technical point, where I say that the GRA is not ready to roll out the E-levy. Normally when you are deploying a project like this, there are three phases; the system development phase, the stage deployment phase, and the product deployment. How do you go ahead and run a financial operation where all of these critical analysis have not been done?” the MP asked.
Mr. George said it is even more worrying that the GRA has not engaged in extensive consultations with key stakeholders on the implementation.
But the GRA itself has insisted that it is ready to begin collection of the new tax despite a legal action filed at the Supreme Court by the minority in parliament against the passage of the law granting the collection of the tax.
