Haruna Iddrisu, the Minority Leader, has described the controversial E-levy bill as “technically incompetent” indicating that his side will fiercely resist it.
This comes after Parliament temporarily suspended sitting on Monday night while considering a report from the Finance Committee on the bill.
Before the house rose, the Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Andrew Amoako Asiamah, mounted the dais to take over from First Deputy Speaker Joseph Osei-Owusu as the latter announced the assumption of his right to vote in what provoked the Minority members, and ruled in favour of the Majority caucus on the approval of the committee’s recommendation for the bill to be considered under a certificate of urgency.
Although that ruling was challenged by the Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed-Muntaka Mubarak, the Speaker asked that the sitting be suspended for one hour.
But Haruna Iddrisu in a subsequent press briefing said his side will not endorse the bill because it is fraught with many challenges.
He said it was wrong for the bill to suggest that for every transfer of above GHC 100, the sender will be charged and in cases where the same amount is transferred to different people that sender will be charged multiple times.
“Their grand deception will fail. I have technical competence in the telecom and communications sector. What the telcos are charging is on fees and not transactions. The government is deceiving them to lower their fee charges by 0.25% and that makes up for what the 1.75% they want to introduce. No telco charges on transactions. They only charge transaction fees of 1% of transfers. I think that technically, this bill is incompetent and they must consult well,” he explained.
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
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