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There has been a raging controversy over whether or not the vice president, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, played a role in the passage of the controversial Electronic Transfer levy (E-levy) passed in March 2022.
This controversy has reached a climax after the Dr Bawumia, now the Presidential candidate for the New Patriotic Party for the 2024 election, promised to abolish the e-levy when elected as President.
“To move towards a cashless economy, however, we must encourage the population to use electronic payment channels. To accomplish this, under my administration, there will be no taxes on digital payments. The e-levy will therefore be abolished,” he declared at a lecture dubbed ‘Ghana’s Next Chapter: Selfless Leadership and Bold Solutions for the Future’ at the University of Professional Studies in Accra on Wednesday.
The promise by Dr Bawumia to scrap the e-levy has triggered a huge controversy, with some elements within the NPP saying the promise to scrap the e-levy was a testament that the Vice-President was not in support of the controversial tax.
However, critics of Dr Bawumia and the government in general have insisted that the NPP flagbearer cannot run from taking responsibility for the tax. which appears to have increased the cost of living for most Ghanaians.
Kojo Oppong Nkrumah and the “fake” fact card
In the heat of this controversy came the online fact card headlined “Bawumia was instrumental in drafting e-levy tax” with a bold “Fake” written on it.
The fact card has resurfaced almost two years after local media quoted the Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, as saying the Vice-President, Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, was instrumental in the government’s controversial Electronic Transfer Levy (E-levy). The minister, however, has now discounted the report.
On Thursday, Feb 8, 2024, the Information Ministry splashed a ‘fake’ tag on a newscard with the headline “Bawumia was instrumental in drafting e-levy tax.” The Ministry’s post did not come with any caption. The news article was published on April 14, 2022, with Big Issue on Citi TV cited as the original interview from which the story was crafted.
The post by the Information Ministry comes barely 24 hours after the Vice-President, now the Presidential candidate for the New Patriotic Party for the 2024 election, promised to abolish the e-levy when elected as President.
So, did Dr Bawumia play any role in the passage of the e-levy?
DUBAWA decided to interrogate the Information Minister’s responses to Citi TV to ascertain whether or not the vice president played any role in the passage of the e-levy.
Two key questions stand out for interrogation.
- Did the Vice President play any role in the passage of the e-levy?
- What role did he play, if at all he did?
What did Kojo Oppong Nkrumah say?
On April 9, 2022, the Information Minister granted an interview to Accra-based Citi TV on their show ‘The Big Issue.’ The show has been published on YouTube, and the entire conversation with the Information Minister can be found between minutes 16:50 and 41:31. From minute 39:48, Mr Nkrumah responded to criticism that the vice-president did not respond to concerns about the passage of the electronic levy when he spoke on Ghana’s economy at the 2022 National TESCON Conference. In his answer to why Dr Bawumia was somewhat silent on the e-levy during the TESCON programme, Mr Nkrumah gave viewers an idea of the role Dr Bawumia played in the passage of the e-levy into law.
Transcription: Minutes 39:48 – 41:10
“The e-levy is a matter that I think, extensively, we have, as a government, spoken to across the country and answered every single question. I can understand why some people want to hear him [Bawumia] do an elaborate set of remarks on it. But it should not be missed that his presentation was the third in a series of presentations by the government dealing with various issues. We have dealt extensively with the electronic transactions levy travelling from Takoradi to Koforidua to Wa to Ho and to other places, engaging with the public, engaging with parliament on mass media platforms explaining the why and dealing with the fact that those two principal issues:
“One, digitalisation will not be compromised by e-levy, which has been responded to. The second matter is dealing with the poor. The vice president himself was very instrumental, and I don’t think I break my cabinet oath when I say this because I believe it sets a good purpose.
“He was very instrumental in the cabinet meetings and the Economic Management Team (EMT) meetings to ensure that his principle argument of protecting the poor was upheld. And that is why the threshold [for the e-levy] was GHC 100.00, which accounts for about 40 per cent of Mobile Money transactions on a daily basis was excluded from this e-levy.”
Conclusion
From the above responses by the Information Minister, it can be said that the Vice-President indeed played a role in drafting the electronic levy tax. It can also be said his role was to somewhat cushion the poor from the full impact of the e-levy.
