Manasseh Azure Awuni writes: Who is in charge of our economy?

Not long after his public comments that it was a bad idea to tax mobile money, the government passed the E-Levy, which affects mainly mobile money users.

The Vice-President had the opportunity to speak on the economy, and many expected him to comment on the E-Levy. He did not and has since remained silent on it.

For those of us who have followed politics and governance for a while, this suggests he is still against it. But the question is why is he quiet when he doesn’t support it? Why doesn’t he go public to state his position, the same way he stated it before the tax was introduced?

Well, that would be a revolution against his government. Even if the NDC is now being blamed for the failure of the E-Levy, it would have been suicidal for a sitting vice-president who is against it to have stated that publicly. He might have been accused of sabotaging the government for his own ambitions.

But that’s his personal dilemma. The most important issue is how the policy is affecting Ghanaians without making the needed impact.

Many Ghanaians predicted that the E-Levy would fail. Apart from failing to generate the needed revenue for the government, it is crippling the mobile money industry and, with time, its impact on the economy would be felt.

Whose idea was the E-Levy that targeted mobile money users? If the head of the EMT had publicly opposed it, then who brought it up and pushed it on us? Who runs the economy? Whose words on the economy hold sway in the government? And who takes responsibility for the failure?

The E-Levy has failed and we’re headed for the IMF. Should we continue to keep the E-Levy when it appears to be causing more damage than good to the economy? Should we keep it when the artisans and food joints and other players in the informal sector who rely on mobile money for survival continue to struggle? Should we continue to keep it when it has the potential of drastically dwindling the taxable revenues of the telcos and other major players in the electronic transactions market?

Who is in charge of our economy and who takes responsibility for the mess we find ourselves in?