I’d like to believe things will be different

I’m Ghanaian, so optimism isn’t one of my strongest qualities, but for once I’d like to believe in something other than fact or reality. The fact is the leaders of this country are an iniquitously corrupt bunch whose specialties are in stealing the nation’s resources.

Well, ‘some’ leaders! The reality also is that time without number, these leaders have looted so much of the country’s few resources and passed what’s left to their kin to finish off. Again, ‘some’ leaders! Yet, like the last flick of light of a candle, before it goes off completely, I would like to believe that this time, things will be different.

Granted, the government makes some salient points as to why the Electronic Transaction Levy seems a good fit for the country to increase its revenue. Case in point, the world just came out of a pandemic that crippled even the best of the world's economy.

To add salt to injury, Russia and the US are at each other’s necks again, and poor Ukraine happens to be the puppet these two nations want to string. But that will be a conversation for later.

It makes sense though to tax such transactions because 2 in 5 Ghanaians aged 15 and above use mobile money platforms. Just last year, some ₵126bn was made out of mobile money transactions alone. And government expects to make close to ₵1bn from this new levy this year.

While this is a new tax in Ghana, the concept isn’t novel. Similar taxes have been introduced in Zimbabwe and Cameroon amidst an expected resistance. In 2019, Zimbabwe introduced a 2% money transfer tax that was hugely unpopular. Cameroon also implemented a 0.2% tax on mobile money transactions this year, also very much contested, and even began the #EndMobileMoneyTax campaign on social media.

It is also a fact that the mobile money business isn’t just about transactions, it’s also about employment for the Ghanaian people. The sector employs thousands of unemployed people, and people’s unacceptance of the levy will reduce transactions which in turn will cause many mobile money businesses to collapse.

Some economic experts even suggested alternative ways government can use to generate revenue including reworking existing taxes like the corporate income tax, personal income tax, or even value-added tax but our 1st gentleman contends that taxing mobile transactions is the way to go.

The president makes a strong case, however, given the fact that much of the country’s economy operates outside the formal sector and less than 10% of the population pays direct taxes. So the E-levy is a way of widening the tax base, boosting the government’s revenue, and putting a dent in the country’s $50bn debt.

This takes me back to the president’s heavily plagiarised inaugural speech of 2017 where he asked us to be “citizens and not spectators”. I guess this is the part we show “Addo Showboy” that we heeded his advice.

So I say we also put him to the test. Let’s be citizens and commit to increasing the government’s revenue through our transactions so that we’ll be in a better position to hold the president and his government accountable if he fails to deliver on his many, many promises!