Netizens criticise Ghanaian celebrities over their continued silence on the E-levy saga
Some Ghanaian netizens have chastised celebrities in Ghana for their total silence on the controversial E-Levy.
The netizens who took to the microsocial blogging platform, Twitter to express their views reckoned and charged Ghanaian celebrities to learn from their Nigerian counterparts to stand up against the electronic transaction levy popularly known as E-levy.
The artists are charged to do so just like Nigerian artists, who fought for their people during the #EndSars campaign.
Here are some of their tweets…
Kobby Founda @Founda tweeted:
“Nigerians artistes were fighting for their people during that end of sars era, but Ghanaian artists are quiet about this e-levy. Alright, they should be quiet when Ghanaians are supporting Nigerian artistes more than them.”
CULU, known on Twitter as @Fawogyimiiko, tweeted: “When we stop using momo, and we don’t get money for bundle to stream their songs, ebe derr wey dem go learn sense.”
@Notekofi also tweeted, “Reason why I will never stream GH music. Davido was on the street to demonstrate with his people. Burnaboy and Wizkid and the rest supported with tweets and some little demonstration in the USA. But how many of our artists supported #fixthecountry demonstration!!”
Some of the netizens were of the view that Ghanaian artists were quiet over the E-Levy, adding that “silence can never be misquoted, and hence no one would tag them with political party colours”.
Closet @lovemesame believes that artists are quiet because they do not want to be affiliated with any political party.
“Has E-levy shed any blood brutalized any innocent soul yet. Our hypocrisy is why artists find it difficult to fight a certain government cos they will associate the party to him. Let Kwa or Reggy fight now, NPP guys will attack him during NDC tenure too. Who are we deceiving?”, he quizzed.
It will be recalled that on 17th November 2021, the Minister for Finance announced during the presentation of the 2022 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of Government to the Parliament of Ghana, the introduction of an “Electronic Transaction Levy” or “E-Levy” of 1.75 per cent on electronic transactions above GHs 100 (US$16) per day to take effect from 1st February 2022. The levy will be applied to mobile money payments, bank transfers, merchant payments, and inward remittances.
Accordingly, all charges will be borne by the sender except in the case of inward remittances where the charge will be borne by the recipient. According to the Finance Minister, the country’s total digital transactions for 2020 were estimated to be over GH¢500 billion (about US$81 billion) compared to GH¢78 billion (US$12.5 billion) in 2016. As a result, the government is projecting to rake in tax revenue of about GH¢6.96 billion (US$1.1 billion) in 2022, and about GH¢26.90 billion (US$4.5 billion) from 2023 to 2025 after the implementation of the electronic transaction levy to help widen the tax net and rope in the informal sector.
Source: Richard Mensah Adonu | Join our Telegram Group
