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According to Andy Kwame Appiah-Kubi, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Asante Akyem North, Ken Ofori-Atta’s intransigence is what has caused the Electronic Transfer Levy to function poorly (E-Levy).
He said that the minister disregarded the suggestions of New Patriotic Party (NPP) MPs to lower the planned levy’s rate from 1.75 percent to 1 percent.
According to Andy Appiah, if the minister had agreed to lower the rate to 1 percent, both the majority and minority caucuses of MPs would have supported the implementation of the levy, and the fights saw in the House would not have taken place.
“The thing is that if you want to evaluate a process you should not be partial with it…we had the E-Levy discussion at Ho, and we (the NPP MPs) were of the view that the 1.75 (percent) rate was too high and it will meet public resistance; so it should be reduced.
We all agreed that if it were raised to 1 percent, the minority and the majority would both agree and accept, he said.
And we’ll be able to sell it together to win over the stakeholders.
The battles over the E-Levy were caused by the ministry’s continued intransigence.
After a while, he (Ofori-Atta) said that although he had lowered the rate to 1.5 percent, that figure was still unworkable.
However, he persisted in giving us optimism that we can deliver with the 1.5, he stated.“This guy does not listen to anyone. So, the minority rejected the levy in Parliament because there was no consensus and this is what characterised our debate to the point it got to. Was it necessary,” One of the NPP lawmakers supporting the request for Ofori-dismissal Atta’s is Andy Appiah.
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com
