Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta is alleged to have met with 18 executives of the National Union of Ghanaian Students (NUGS) and greased their palms with GHC 15,000 each in return for them to pay glowing acknowledgment to the newly introduced e-levy taxes on electronic transactions.
This allegation is hard to verify, as our sources claim that as part of the arrangement, NUG will organize a press conference today, Thursday, November 25, 2021, to hail the new taxes that have widely peeved Ghanaians.
Whatsup News has seen a notice of the said press conference which has been scheduled for 9.30 am at the University of Ghana campus in Accra.
The invitation signed by NUGS President, Emmanuel Yiadom Boakye reads: “We wish to extend an invitation to you our Press Briefing on the BUDGET 2022 read last week by Finance Minister Hon. Ken Ofori-Atta,”
The issues that will be discussed at the press briefing is still unclear as speculations heighten that NUGS may endorse the contentious budget.
Last week, the Akufo Addo administration unveiled the 2022 budget much to the chagrin of Ghanaians following the slew of nuisance taxes that were featured in the document.
Top of the contentious taxes introduced is the 1.7% Mobile Money (MoMo) and e-transaction taxes which will deduct the significant sum for every transaction done electronically, as the government aims to raise GHC 9 billion from that.
However, the MoMo tax has been widely condemned, given the fact that the majority of those who patronize cash transactions via their mobile phones are within the spectrum of poor people in society. Hence such a tax is expected to further burden this segment of the society that mostly does not use the conventional banking system for cash transactions.
Critics have questioned the sanity of such a tax because it is likely to deny the government its projections of fleecing GHC 9 billion from e-transaction taxes because the patrons would simply abandon it and use alternatives that go under the radar of official channels.
That potential will also roll back the government’s much-touted plan to make Ghana a cashless society.
