Concerns have been expressed by the University of Ghana Chapter President of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) over Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s recent speech on Wednesday, February 7.
Prof. Ransford Gyampo argued that in order for Dr. Bawumia’s New Patriotic Party to continue to rule, the government needs to take action on these issues.
If elected to office, Dr. Bawumia promised to remove the contentious electronic transaction levy, or “E-Levy.” The New Patriotic Party’s presidential candidate stressed during his speech how crucial it is for Ghana to move toward a cashless economy to fight corruption and promote economic growth.
He emphasized that to accomplish this goal, electronic payment channels must be encouraged to be used. The government imposed the tax as part of its plan to increase the tax base and raise money for development.
“I would like to bring Ghana close to a cashless economy in the shortest possible time. So far the Bank of Ghana has made a lot of progress in this direction by putting in place a lot of the systems and infrastructure required. These include mobile money interoperability, merchant interoperability, Universal QRCode payment system, Gh-Link, debit cards, Ezwich, and GhanaPay.”
“We have put in place the necessary infrastructure for Ghana to go cashless. Recently the Bank of Ghana has completed a pilot of a digital version of the Ghana cedi note in Sefwi Wiawso. This is known as central bank digital currency (CBDC) or e-cedi. The e-cedi is designed to work online and offline and will be launched by the Bank of Ghana in due course.”
“In my humble opinion, the e-cedi, with appropriate privacy protections, will be the ultimate weapon in our fight against corruption because it will provide transparency, reduce the risk of fraud, robbery, tax avoidance, and money laundering since it will be easy to track the movement of money and identify suspicious activity. The e-cedi will quicken the pace of Ghana’s move towards a cashless or near cashless society.”
Prof. Gyampo questioned why, instead of waiting until taking office, Dr. Bawumia is not pressuring the government to put these initiatives into action right away.
Prof. Gyampo voiced his concerns in a Facebook post on Thursday, February 8, emphasizing the need for prompt action in implementing policies to move Ghana toward a cashless society.
A portion of the presentation was an indictment of the government, of which he is a member, in a way that justifies those of us who have been government critics and raises important questions.
“Promising to have not more than 50 Ministers when you are part of a government of over 100 Ministers; and promising to abolish some taxes like the Emissions tax, Gaming Tax, E-Levy, VAT on electricity consumption, etc makes some of us feel vindicated for criticising and calling for downsizing of government and the abolition of such nuisance taxes,” a portion of his post read.
