Free SHS Will Be Cancelled If You Don’t Accept E-levy – Okyere Baafi

Michael Okyere Baafi, a member of Parliament for New Juaben South, has advised Ghanaians to accept and pay the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy) or face the cancellation of the NPP’s Free Senior High School policy.

According to him, if parliament fails to ratify the additional levy, the Akufo-Addo government will be forced to approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF), resulting in the revocation of the free SHS policy.

“If we don’t pay the E-levy and we go to the World Bank or the IMF for loans, they will ask Akufo-Addo to cancel the free SHS which will affect your children so you must all accept the E-levy and pay it so it helps all of us,” Okyere Baafi told members of his constituency during a town hall meeting.

His remarks came after Roads and Highways Minister Kwasi Amoako-Atta guaranteed road contractors in the country that if the controversial e-levy is enacted, all existing bills will be paid in full.

“When the E-levy is implemented, the road sector will get its fair share. All contractors owed by the government will be paid. Many deplorable roads will be fixed when the E-Levy is introduced because all contractors we owe will be paid. You are going to benefit directly from its implementation. No serious government will joke with its contractors,” the Minister told the leadership of the Road Contractors Association in a meeting on Monday.

Following concerns raised by the roads safety commission, the Minister also intimated that toll booths that have recently been used for toll collection will be used as places of convenience.

“We even want to refurbish all those toll booth structures to provide proper and decent washrooms for use by motorists to avoid situations where motorists stop to ease themselves indiscriminately.”

The opposition NDC MPs and a group of Ghanaians have been vocal in their opposition to the E-levy.