A Deputy Finance Minister, Dr John Kumah, says as of April 29, government’s readiness to implement the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-levy) from May 1, is almost 100 per cent.

According to him, government’s preparedness is at a rate of 95 per cent.

Speaking on JoyNews’ AM Show on Friday, Dr John Kumah noted that in the next 48 hours, government’s preparation to see to the implementation of the levy will be complete.

“We are 95 per cent ready. So the next 48 hours will make it 100 per cent. We are rolling out God willing May 1. The E-levy is coming to life,” he told host, Benjamin Akakpo.

His assurance comes a day after the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), the institution in charge of the collection of the tax, noted that it would not be able to fully implement the levy from May 1.

According to the GRA, it will commence the operationalization of the E-levy in a modified-phased approach.

The Authority’s decision follows an assessment carried out to test the general readiness of some charging entities to integrate with the E-Levy management system.

The new development is a snag in the Authority’s plan to fully implement the E-levy by May 1.

According to Ningo-Prampram MP, Sam George, the Application Programming Interface (API) and the security architecture have not been made available to the telecommunications companies (Telcos).

“I can speak on authority that as at close of day as late as 11 pm last night (Wednesday), when the Commissioner-General for the GRA said all the APIs have been given to all Electronic Money Issuers (EMI) that was incorrect. At least two APIs are still outstanding.”

“Critical amongst the two is the reversal API. The GRA at the last technical meeting admitted that because all the robustness tests have not been done for the system, there’s a possibility of downtimes when you place a call to the API to do all the checks before a tax is applied or not applied, and it’s possible that you will not get the checks done in real-time.”

Mr Samuel Nartey George stated that this is likely to create problems, including the likelihood of sparking confusion at Mobile money vending points.

The E-Levy will impose 1.50% on all electronic transfers.