Gov’t is 95% ready to implement e-levy – John Kumah

A Deputy Finance Minister, John Kumah, has disclosed that government’s preparation towards the implementation of the 1.5% e-levy is 95%.

The electronic transaction levy has been scheduled to take effect come Sunday, May 1, 2022.

Dr. John Kumah, who was speaking on JoyNews’ AM Show on Friday, indicated that, government’s readiness to see to the implementation of the levy will be complete in the next 48 hours.

He added that “we are 95 per cent ready. So the next 48 hours will make it 100 per cent. We are rolling out God willing May 1. The E-levy is coming to life.”

Meanwhile, the GRA has announced that it will commence the operationalization of the e-levy in phases as opposed to a full implementation on May 1.

The Authority’s decision follows an assessment carried out to test the general readiness of some charging entities to integrate with the E-Levy management system.

Despite the assurances from the Deputy Finance Minister, legislator for Ningo-Prampram, Sam George, has opined that GRA’s systems are not ready and this might create problems.

“I can speak on authority that as at close of day as late as 11 pm last night (Wednesday), when the Commissioner-General for the GRA said all the APIs have been given to all Electronic Money Issuers (EMI) that was incorrect. At least two APIs are still outstanding.”

Sam George argued further that “critical amongst the two is the reversal API. The GRA at the last technical meeting admitted that because all the robustness tests have not been done for the system, there’s a possibility of downtimes when you place a call to the API to do all the checks before a tax is applied or not applied, and it’s possible that you will not get the checks done in real-time.”