The e-levy is now serving the purpose that the Agyapa deal would have done therefore, the government must abort the plan to collateralize the mineral resources, a Professor at the University of Ghana Business School, Lord Mensah, has said.
Prof Mensah explained that as of the time the Agyapa deal was being introduced, Ghana was not able to access to the Eurobond market to raise revenue for development.
Following the inability to raise funds from the Eurobond market, a desperate Ghana then needed to look for ways to raise funds internally to embark on the development projects hence, the introduction of the e-levy.
With the implementation of the e-levy policy, he said, the government is, at the moment, getting the needed revenue for the projects.
In his view, the e-levy has replaced the Agaypa deal.
Speaking on the New Day show on TV3 with Johnnie Hughes, Wednesday May 18, he said “I don’t and I wasn’t expecting Agyapa to come back again. E-levy has come, E-levy is more or less, for me, a replacement of Agyapa.”
When asked to explain further, he said “You have your human resources that you are taxing their activities, the transactions that they make and then you have the natural resources deposited as gold. At the time that we were looking at the Agyapa deal, more or less, the country was desperately looking for money. The signals were clear that the Eurobond market, where we raised the billions of dollars to offset the existing debts and get some proceeds for development this country, we were getting to a point where the investor communities have started shying away from us.
“So at that point, let us look for alternative of raising money. So, in the form of engineering, let us see how we can collateralize some of our natural resources and get upfront funds and then in the end, we use it for the purpose that the Eurobond could have given us.
“Now, we find it difficult going to the Eurobond market and one of the justifications of the e-levy was to get a replacement for the funds that we get from the Eurobond market, so effectively, the timing for me is wrong.”