[ 2021-02-18 ]

Time to tax MoMo proceeds - Ursula Owusu Ekuful
The Minister designate for Communications and
Digitalisation, Mrs Ursula Owusu Ekuful, has said
it is time telecommunication companies that
operate mobile money paid taxes on the profits
they generate from their services.
She said reports she had from the common platform,
which monitors mobile money transactions, showed
that in January this year alone, monthly
transactions that passed through mobile money
platforms amounted to GH¢81.3 billion.



That, she said, generated GH¢124.5 million in
transaction fees for the mobile money operators,
yet the money generated was not taxed, as applied
to financial transactions, saying “if the state
gets even 10 per cent of that per month, that is
GH¢12.5 million”.

“In my opinion (and I am expressing my opinion
here), the transaction fees generated by operators
from these huge traffic volumes on mobile money
platforms ought to be taxed,” she said.

State must take interest

When she appeared before the Appointments
Committee of Parliament (ACP) last Monday, Mrs
Owusu Ekuful explained: “I am not saying that
individuals who send and receive mobile money
should be taxed. The fees they pay to all the
network operators for the service are revenue that
the operators earn and the state has to be
interested in that and tax them.”



The Minister designate made her opinion known when
the Member of Parliament (MP) for Akuapem South,
Mr O. B. Amoah, asked her if there was a policy on
mobile money transactions regarding money going
through the system, whether such transactions
should be taxed and what the implications of such
an action would be.

Mrs Owusu Ekuful spent over five hours answering
questions pertaining to her stewardship as a
former Minister of Communications, the closure of
radio stations, subscriber identification module
(SIM) card registration, the KelniGVG contract,
radiations emitted by telecom towers, women’s
empowerment in politics, as well as the brouhaha
surrounding a chair being pulled from under her in
Parliament.

She also responded to questions pertaining to her
temperament, particularly her public utterances
against the Minority, a development that saw her
apologising to her colleagues in the Minority four
times during the vetting.


Ghana losing huge taxes

The Ablekuma West New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP
told the committee that she had further been
informed that some of the mobile money operators
had been phasing out scratch cards, insisting on
top-ups from mobile money.



What that meant, she said, was that the state was
losing the revenue it could have received from the
sale and receipt of scratch cards.

“They are charging one per cent for each top-up
on mobile money, which is money that they generate
and which is currently beyond the reach of the
state. So while we are losing money on the
traditional money streams because of the evolution
of technology, the state has disabled itself from
gaining revenue from the new streams because
currently mobile money and all the money generated
are not taxed as financial transactions,” she
said.

The Minister designate for Communications and
Digitisation added that mobile money operators
were already charging consumers one per cent per
transaction for the services they provided for
consumers.

“I believe the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and
the Minister of Finance ought to be interested in
that,” she said.

National conversation

She called for a national conversation on the
matter because Ghana was losing out on the
traditional revenue streams of the telecom
companies because of the evolution of technology,
with the number of people who made normal voice
calls declining.

“So the revenue that the state would have got
from that through the Communications Service Tax
is declining and that is not going to go up
anytime soon,” she added.

SIM cards, mobile phone registration

To curb the use of SIM cards to commit crimes, Mrs
Owusu Ekuful said the Communications Ministry had
taken a decision to revisit the issue of proper
SIM card registration across the country.

She said one of the main factors that plagued SIM
card registration in the past was the lack of
foolproof identification cards to verify the
identities of those who wanted to register their
SIM cards and urged the public to take advantage
of the next registration exercise.

She pledged to re-introduce the registration of
both SIM cards and mobile phone devices to cut
down on the theft and resale of mobile phones and
tablets.

“Ghana will be signed onto the global central
identity register and so if a phone is stolen from
outside, it cannot be used here in Ghana because
if is blocked there, it will be blocked here
too,” she said.

Closure of radio stations

On the closure of some radio stations, Mrs Owusu
Ekuful blatantly denied allegations that she had
specifically targeted certain radio stations,
leading to their closure.

Giving a background to the closure, she told the
committee that the National Communications
Authority (NCA) was mandated by Section Two of the
Electronic Communications Act, 2008 (Act 775) to
regulate radio station spectrum allocated to
broadcasting organisations and providers.

In line with that mandate, she said, on her
assumption of office, she informed the NCA to
enforce the law across various sectors.

The MP said following her charge to the NCA to
enforce the law, the authority conducted an audit
in 2017, which indicated that 144 stations had
committed several infractions which necessitated
that they be sanctioned and some of them fined.

“At the end of the exercise, 56 FM stations were
closed down and 43 of them have submitted fresh
applications for authorisation, out of which 30
have been processed and granted authorisation to
operate.

“The remaining 13 applications will be processed
within the first quarter of the year,” Mrs Owusu
Ekuful said, adding that those that were shut down
operated without licences.

She added that as of the end of last year, there
were 625 authorised FM radio stations in Ghana,
with 452 of them, representing 72 per cent, in
operation, while 173 were not in operation.

No affront to freedom of expression

When the Minority Leader, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, asked
if she considered the closure of radio stations an
affront to freedom of expression, Mrs Owusu Ekuful
replied: “Absolutely not.”

“To enjoy any right, you come to equity with
clean hands. You do not flout the same law which
grants you authority to operate as a radio
station, in furtherance of your freedom of
expression,” she said.

She, however, urged the affected stations to
submit fresh applications to be processed to allow
them to obtain authorisation to operate.

Source - Graphic Online

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