Stanbic MD calls for withdrawal of fiscal stabilisation levy

The levy was passed in 2013 to impose a 5 percent stabilisation levy on specified companies and institutions in order to raise revenue for fiscal stabilization of the economy and related matters.

“For me, I think it probably made sense then when the levy was introduced because we all knew that things were not upright and we needed to squeeze for things to stabilise. But since then, things have changed and all the indicators show that the economy is beginning to show positive signs,” he told the Daily Graphic Newspaper on the sidelines of a Stanbic Bank / Graphic Business Executive Breakfast Meeting in Accra.

“We have some new taxes in the system, which are directed at the same private sector. So, if we remove the levy now, it will help the same businesses so that they are not too tight,” he added.

The levy was to help reduce Ghana’s growing deficit. The categories of companies selected to pay the levy include telecom providers, banks (excluding rural banks), insurance banks, non-banking financial institutions, breweries, shipping lines among others.

In April, the CEO of MTN Ghana called for the scrapping of the levy, arguing that it has outlived it usefulness.

“We are not asking government to wave it immediately but it should be in government’s plan to wave it latest by 2017 so that we can go back to our mandatory taxes, duties and levies which are we very happy to continue paying,” Ebenezer Twum Asante said.