Ghana Telecoms Chamber

E-levy implementation: GRA to refund wrongful deductions to consumers due to technical hitches

The Ghana Revenue Authority will investigate and refund all wrongful deductions from customers’ mobile money wallets during the first day of the implementation of the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-levy). 

This is due to some technical hitches experienced on the day by some consumers on the various networks.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Head of Project Management Unit at the GRA, Isaac Kobina Amoako admitted the challenges, and assured all consumers of a refund after the completion of the probe by his outfit.

 According to him, the authority received feedback from some charging entities including the banks and telecom companies, but a daily report will be run on all transactions to see the way forward.

Clarifying a point from a listener, Mr. Amoako, said “the feedback we got from one of the charging entities is that the configuration for off-net for less than 100 and below is being charged which is in two folds”.

 “The first fold is that, 100 and below whether on net or off-net does not attract E-Levy irrespective, but at the moment it’s a technical hitch. So it will be ratified automatically once the transaction is detected.”

He added “they will run an end of day report for all transactions below 100 transactions that were not supposed to attract the levy and were charged. The customers don’t need to do any intervention. If indeed the investigation shows that it was the first hundred cedis or below for the day, the amount will be refunded”.

Speaking on the same show, Chief Executive of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Ken Ashigbey, hinted that helplines will be published for aggrieved customers to seek clarity in the payment of the levy.

 He however pointed out that some of these hitches were expected, but confident they will be resolved soon.
 “There was an engagement with the charging entities and the phased approached was agreed upon. So we noticed that a lot of these things [hitches] were occasioned after the phased approach was agreed which was just few days to going live with the levy. So more education will happen and the FAQs [Frequently Ask Questions] developed for the project”.

“So if you call any of the call center lines that will be given out later, some more clarity and education will still continue”, he added.

Government is targeting about ¢4.5 billion as revenue from the E-levy.

Source: Ebenezer Sabutey.