Electronic Transaction Levy (commonly known as Electronic Levy or E-levy) is a tax applied on transactions made on electronic or digital platforms.

Ghana’s Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta announced this on Wednesday, November 17, during the presentation of the budget for the year 2022. He specified that the levy concerns all electronic transactions, including Mobile Money, bank transfers and other remittances, and merchant payments. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the Ghanaian government’s tax forecasts. The various social actions undertaken by the government have greatly increased the public debt.

The use of mobile money has grown exponentially within 10 years in Ghana. This makes the oil-producing West African country one of Africa’s leaders in mobile money innovation, adoption, and usage.

According to figures from the Bank of Ghana (BoG), mobile money accounts now surpass bank accounts and greater financial inclusion has benefited large swathes of the population that remain unbanked including the poor, the young, and women.

While access to traditional banking services remains almost a mirage for most Ghanaians, the universal availability of mobile phones has allowed millions to access mobile money services in the country.

The Governor of the Bank of Ghana Dr Ernest Addison said, currently, there are more than nineteen million (19,000,000) active mobile money accounts driving the digital financial services industry.

This is an indication that most Ghanaians now rely on mobile money to send and receive money domestically. The introduction of mobile money transactions has helped many Ghanaians, especially businessmen and women who do business electronically.

However, the story of the MoMo transaction cannot be told without mentioning the activities of fraudsters who attempt to dupe subscribers as with all other transactions and the countermeasures introduced.

At least, more than fifty percent of Mobile Money users across the country have suffered one way or the other in the hands of fraudsters.

They have used so many means to empty the accounts of some Momo users without being caught by the telecommunication network providers.

Day in and day out, they keep on changing their style of making people fall into their trap.

The new way fraudsters have adopted to get access your momo account.

As smart as some fraudsters are, they will call you on your number claiming that they work at the offices of either MTN, Vodafone or AirtelTigo and would like to help you protect your money against E-levy.

According to their trick, they claim that the 7.5% that has to be deducted from all your Momo transactions will be reduced to 0.5% if only you follow their steps. They will then ask for your Ghana Card number, Voters ID number and your Momo wallet PIN code.

Note: None of the above telcos will originally call you and ask for your momo wallet pin code. BEWARE!.

After getting your secret PIN code, they will take you through smart processes till they get your money.

Please don’t fall into this, they are fraudsters who want to take your money.

I am a victim and I don’t want you to go through it.

Share this article with friends and family to protect them from falling into such a trap.

E-levy has started. Have you made any transactions today? If yes, were you deducted?

People have started complaining that deductions were made on monies less than 100 cedis. How true is that?

What are your general thoughts about the e-levy controversy?

Source:Quick News.com