The Minister-Designate for Communication and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has opined that the transaction fees generated by operators from the huge traffic volumes recorded on mobile money platforms need to be taxed.

According to her, fees charged by the operators can serve as revenue to the State hence the need for their taxation.

“In my opinion, the transaction fees generated by operators from this huge traffic and volumes on mobile money platforms ought to be taxed.

“I am not saying that individuals who send and receive mobile money should be taxed however the fees they pay to all network operators for the service is revenue that they earn and the State has to be interested in that and has to tax them for it,” she said.

Madam Owusu-Ekuful, during her vetting today, intimated that the State stands to lose money from the traditional revenue streams because of the evolution of technology.

She further noted that it has come to her attention that most mobile money operators are gradually phasing out the sale of scratch cards “and insisting on top-ups from mobile money”.

What this means, in her view, “is that the revenue that the state would have gotten from the sale and receipt of scratch cards is lost to the state”.

She added: “They (the network operators) are charging 10 percent for each top-up on mobile money which is money they are generating, which is currently beyond the reach of the State.

“So while we are losing money on the traditional revenue streams because of the evolution of technology, we have the disabled the state from gaining the revenue from the new stream that these network operators are getting,” she explained.

Further to that, she stated that “currently, mobile money and all revenue generated from it are not taxed as financial transactions”, something she believes that needs to be looked at.