Ghana Telecommunications companies (telcos) are yet to apply the 1 percent Electronic Transaction Levy (E-levy) introduced by the government in the Budget of 2023.
In the announcing of the 2023 Budget and Economic Policy Statement, the government reduced the 1.5 percent electronic transaction levy downwards to 1 percent effective January 2023 and had already been approved by parliament.
The Deputy National Public Relations Officer of the Mobile Money Association of Ghana, Joshua Edmonson announced that the revised rate will take effect soon .
“It has not yet been implemented, although it has been announced we are hopeful it will take effect in the next few days to come. I am sure the telcos will have to do something to their database before implementation but the good news is that it has been announced and in the next few days it will take effect,” he said.
It is seen that the levy had failed to meet all of its revenue obligations since it was introduced with players in the telco space.
This has been raising concerns over practicality running an effective mobile money service with the levy in place.
After the levy was brought to light, telcos registered over 300,000 in losses of mobile money subscribers in April 2022 alone.
In the Summary of Economic and Financial data that was made in May 2022, saw active momo users declining from 18.9 to 18.5 million subscribers since April.
Also the mobile money industry lost about 4,000 active agents, as agents declined from 458,000 to 454,000 since March.
This reflected in the value of transactions, which dropped by GH¢2.8billion within that period.
