GRA Not Ready To Implement E-levy From May 1 – Sam George

The Member of Parliament (MP) for the Ningo-Prampram constituency in the Greater Accra Region says the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) is not ready to roll out the implementation of the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy) from May 1, 2022.

According to Sam Nartey George, the authority has ‘nothing’ to commence the implementation of their assurance.

“They are not ready. What has to be done has not been completely done,” he said in an interview with NEAT FM’s morning show, ‘Ghana Montie’.

Commissioner-General of the GRA, Rev Dr Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah has said that all the technologies needed to ensure the successful implementation of the E-Levy have been acquired.

He noted that the only thing left to do is for the Mobile Money Issuers (MMIs) and the Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) which includes Telecommunication Companies (Telcos) and Banks to integrate into the system.

“ . . this system is already available and the then application programme interface which is the APIs has also been made available. We have had several engagements with the various stakeholders in terms of what we call the charging entities (The EMIs, the banks, the Telcos) who will be charging the money and transferring the money to the Consolidated Fund through the Ghana.gov platform. And so, what the entities will have to do is to ensure that they have taken the necessary protocols and will be able to interface with the system.”

“The system is available, the API is available, an end-to-end test has been done successfully with a number of transactions that have gone through successfully without any failure. So we are confident that it beholds on the charging entities to do the integration,” he said.

But Sam Nartey George said the Commissioner-General of the GRA, Rev Dr Ammishaddai is ‘throwing dust in the people’s eyes.’

“You will soon hear the challenges when they commence this policy. They are not ready for this but they won’t tell Ghanaians the truth. You’ll see the problems. They can’t joke with people’s money. It is not right,” he told host, Akwasi Aboagye.