The Minister for Railways Development, Mr. John-Peter Amewu has justified the need for the introduction of the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-levy), saying, ‘government does not grow money on trees to fund developmental projects.’
According to him, revenue measures such as the e-levy was necessary to raise the needed resources domestically to fund the various developmental initiatives, so much desired by citizens across the country.
‘We all desire for development, but the truth is that, government does not grow money on trees to fund such development,’ Mr. Amewu stated and urged the citizens to support the government through the payment of the e-levy to help fix the roads, and many social amenities they seek.
He therefore appealed to residents of the Volta region to consider the benefit of the Levy to the country, and ignore the propaganda of the opposition NDC MPs, whom he said want to make political capital out of the policy.
On his part, Mr. Pius Hadzide, CEO of the National Youth Authority, urged young people in the region to prevail on their MPs to pass the e-levy in order for the government to fund the various youth interventions captured in the 2022 budget.
‘There are as such as 13 interventions for the youth in the budget, one of which is the YouStart initiative, which will build the capacity and provide funding to young entrepreneurs. And The e-levy is a critical source of funding for this initiative,’ Mr. Hadzide stated.
Dr. Archibald Letsa, the Volta Regional Minister also indicated that, various road projects in the region which have been earmarked in the 2022 budget for construction, could suffer delays should government not raise the needed resources to execute them, hence appealed to all stakeholders support the government in that regard by embracing the e-levy.
Both the Finance Minister, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta and Information Minister, Mr. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, who addressed the townhall meeting, also took turns to respond to queries from participants, drawn from various interest groups in the region.https://www.youtube.com/embed/6T7_5VU9v6E?feature=oembed
Source: www.voltaonlinegh.com
