{"id":10415,"date":"2025-03-27T10:06:35","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T10:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/?p=10415"},"modified":"2025-03-27T10:06:35","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T10:06:35","slug":"e-levy-abolishing-will-bring-much-needed-relief-to-ghanaians-finance-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/?p=10415","title":{"rendered":"E-Levy abolishing will bring much-needed relief to Ghanaians \u2013 Finance Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Finance Minister, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, has said that the removal of the E-levy and Betting Tax will no doubt bring much-needed relief to Ghanaians.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a post on his X page, the finance minister said \u201cParliament has just passed the bill I presented to abolish the E-Levy! I am confident that H.E President Mahama will sign it soon, bringing much-needed relief to the good people of Ghana.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghana\u2019s Parliament approved the scrapping of the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy) in the 2025 budget statement on Wednesday, March 26.<\/p>\n

Fish fm\\ tv Parliamentary reporter, who was in Parliament, reported that this was after the House passed the Electronic Transaction Levy (Repeal) Bill, 2025.<\/p>\n

E-levy was a tax applied on transactions made on electronic or digital platforms in Ghana since 29 March 2022. The tax was to mobilize revenue to support entrepreneurship and national development. However, the anticipated proceeds were not realized<\/p>\n

The Finance Minister, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, had earlier announced that the government would be abolishing the E-levy, and the 10% tax on lottery winnings, also known as betting tax.<\/p>\n

The Minister announced this when he presented the government\u2019s first budget statement to Parliament on Tuesday, March 11.<\/p>\n

The Minister also announced the cancellation of other levies, including the Emissions tax.<\/p>\n

He also announced that in an attempt to review the Value Added Tax system, the government will also eventually abolish the COVID-19 levy.<\/p>\n

Dr Forson stressed that the government remained committed to social protection programmers, with increased budgetary allocations to the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the Livelihood Empower\u00adment Against Poverty (LEAP) Programmer, the School Feeding Programmer, and the Capitation Grant.<\/p>\n

Under the LEAP programmer, benefits had been adjusted to reflect inflation, and the number of beneficiary households will in\u00adcrease from 350,000 to 400,000 in July 2025.<\/p>\n

The government has also raised the allocation for LEAP benefits by 30.8 per cent, from GH\u00a2728.8 million to GH\u00a2953.5 million.<\/p>\n

\n
Furthermore, funding for the School Feeding Programmer has been increased, with the cost of feeding per pupil per day going up by 33 per cent.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThese interventions reaffirm the govern\u00adment\u2019s commitment to supporting vulner\u00adable groups and ensuring social equity,\u201d Dr Forson noted.<\/p>\n

During his speech before presenting the budget, Dr Forson, emphasized the need for national unity and collective effort in addressing Ghana\u2019s economic challenges.<\/p>\n

He noted that the just-ended National Economic Dialogue, the first in over a de\u00adcade, was a crucial opportunity to reflect on the country\u2019s economic realities and chart a course for recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis dialogue is an opportunity to reflect on our economic reality, address pressing challenges, and chart a course towards a more prosperous future for all our citizens,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

The minister also acknowledged the se\u00advere impact of recent economic difficulties, including currency depreciation, hyperin\u00adflation, high taxes, rising fuel and electricity prices, and soaring interest rates.<\/p>\n

He stressed that the crisis was not over and that significant sacrifices were needed to stabilize the economy.<\/p>\n

He highlighted President John Dramani Mahama\u2019s commitment to fiscal discipline, including reducing the number of ministers from 123 to 60 and implementing budget cuts for the Office of the President. Ad\u00additionally, first-class travel for government officials had been prohibited as part of cost-cutting measures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Finance Minister, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, has said that the removal of the E-levy and Betting Tax will no doubt bring much-needed relief to Ghanaians. In a post on his X page, the finance minister said \u201cParliament has just passed the bill I presented to abolish the E-Levy! I am confident that H.E President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[118,887],"class_list":["post-10415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","tag-e-levy","tag-finance-minister"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10417,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10415\/revisions\/10417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}