Senior Vice President of IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil, says the inconsistencies in government’s communication over the Electronic Transaction Levy Bill (E-levy) amounts to a disrespect of people’s intelligence. He said government has not been objective in its consultations over E-levy as certain groups are deliberately left out, creating room for some selected persons to rain praises on the policy.
The private legal practitioner described the tax policy as “unpopular” when he was hosted by Joy News’ Samson Lardy Anyenini on Newsfile on Saturday. He added that the position of government officials and how they communicate about the proposed levy is what gives the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) the room to oppose it. “Sometimes, it’s very interesting how people come and spin and expect that we believe it, assuming that we don’t know what is going on. They’ve gone back to do the so-called consultations and in doing that, they are creating these crowds of selected people and excluding other people, as if we won’t know, as if we can’t tell.
“There is too much spin and now the spin has gotten to the point where it is a disrespect of our intelligence,” he lamented. Mr. Bentil further noted that “if they [the Majority] had the numbers, they would be on the floor and they would be pushing this through. It is very clear that the E-levy is extremely unpopular [and] it is giving the NDC a lot of energy to continue to fight it.”
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