The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has held a sensitisation workshop on the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-levy) for district officers of the Information Services Department (ISD) under the Ministry of Information.
The one-day programme, which was organised by the GRA in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance in Kumasi on Monday, was aimed at empowering the ISD officers to embark on public education campaigns to sensitise Ghanaians on the importance of the e-levy.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Deputy Minister of Information Fatimatu Abubakar, charged state agencies to partner with the ISD and give it more opportunities to serve, especially on public awareness campaigns, since the department has the capacity to get the message to the ground convincingly.
Ms Fatimatu Abubakar said just as the department has done so well with other sensitisation campaigns, the government expects that it will devote much attention and resources to the e-levy campaign and help get the message down to citizens in rural communities.
“Our expectation is that after this exercise, many Ghanaians will understand the essence of contributing to the e-levy, and as such, revenue mobilisation for developments to benefit all,” she said.
The workshop was organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance.
Deputy Minister of Finance and MP for Atiwa East, Abena Osei Asare, stressed the importance of the e-levy, indicating that the government is hoping to use the levy to boost revenue generation for developments.
“It will help us broaden the tax base to include a large portion of the population who are eligible to pay taxes”, she said.
The Acting Director of the ISD, David Owusu Amoah, charged his officers to take this task as a test case to deliver and get the message to the people in the appropriate language.