Alfred Obeng Boateng, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Bibiani-Anwhiaso-Bekwai has bemoaned the missed opportunity the country had with the controversial e-levy.
He said the country would have benefitted immensely from infrastructural projects had the populace embraced the levy.
In an interview on Oyerepa TV, he said Ghanaians betrayed President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo by not fulfilling their part of the bargain.
“In our country, we don’t have enough resources and so the e-levy was a good policy that was going to develop our economy, but Ghanaians are not participating. Since the introduction of the policy, Ghanaians have stopped doing Momo. There has been a sharp decline in mobile money transactions, and that’s betraying the government.
“People have also devised crook ways like using merchant numbers to escape the levy and it’s not helping situations. Because if we (citizens) patronized the use of Mobile Money transactions, the government would have generated the needed revenue for various developmental projects. So, it’s true, if government had gotten what was envisioned, things would have been different. At least if the e-levy was not going to solve our problems it could have done a lot for us,” he explained.
Last week, the Minister of Roads and Highways, Kwesi Amoako-Atta said that the government would have constructed more roads if Ghanaians subscribed to the E-Levy policy.
Alfred Obeng added that the roads minister hoped that part of the proceeds from the E-Levy would be used for the construction of the roads but it has emerged that Ghanaians have refused to support the policy.
He also blamed the minority in parliament for being behind the corrupted mindset Ghanaians have about the policy.
Pulse
