The Ministry, in a statement issued by the Public Relations Unit and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said, “GRA will manage all discussions to ensure full deployment of their current platforms and resources for the collection of the e-levy.”
This follows discussions that government should drop the allocation of GHC241,933,000 for the e-transaction levy services to an alleged private company.
The statement said, “the Ministry of Finance wish to state that these allegations are all untrue.”
Quoting an earlier statement made by the Finance Minister, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta on the subject, it noted that, “we do have an understanding with the Ghana Revenue Authority, which uses up to 3 percent of the money it raises for ensuring that they can make such collections.”
“The GHc241 million is, therefore, a reserve that is intended to be put aside to facilitate GRA’s collection of these resources,” the statement said.
“Additionally, typically when we have new tax measures, there is the issue of refunds and we usually make some compensation for that, sometimes 6 percent or so of the value to ensure that if those refunds come, we are able to pay for them.
“So, in essence, this really will be to back up GRA in a way to ensure that all the problems that people envisage and the difficulties other countries have had will be mitigated in Ghana, so we should be in readiness to support that,” the statement added.