The E-levy Is Not The Akobam They Promised; It Has Failed – Dr. Ato Forson

Ranking Member on Parliament’s Finance Committee, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, says the implementation of the e-levy policy has failed woefully.

According to him, the failure of the tax policy to produce even half of what it was projected to generate within a month shows the extent of failure.

He is urging the government to immediately subscribe to an IMF programme before Ghana’s already harsh economic situation becomes direr.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, he said, “I have heard the government saying that we won’t do an IMF programme, but what are they doing? I have not seen the so-called homegrown policy. Is your homegrown the e-levy? Then you have failed.

“If the e-levy is the only homegrown that you have then I’m sorry to say this is a failed government because the e-levy has failed. And I say this because if you project to do revenue 475million Ghana cedis in a month and you end up getting 54 million then that is a gargantuan failure.

“I have never seen a tax policy that has underperformed so woefully than what I’ve seen. This is a classic example of a mother of nuisance taxes,” he said.

He stated that the abysmal performance of the e-levy policy is a blight on the record of the ruling party considering how full blown their marketing strategy had been to sell the idea to Ghanaians.

“Upon all the noise that we saw with the e-levy, the way you couched it, the way you marketed it, impressions that were created – at a point I even joked in parliament that it is going to cure the bald headedness of my colleague honourable Ablakwa – we were told that it was going to be the Akobam of this world, the modern day Akobam, it will solve every single economic problem. Today look at how gargantuan it has underperformed. This is a failed policy, let’s admit,” he said.