Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the Communications Minister on Thursday implored the Finance Minister and the Ghana Revenue Authority to let telecommunication companies pay taxes on fees they receive on mobile money transactions.
Currently, the telecommunication companies charge one per cent transaction fees on every mobile money transaction and generate GHc71 million per month.
Addressing the media in Accra, to update the public on the Common Platform that monitors the activities of telecos, Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said telecos ought to pay taxes on monies they earned on transaction fees so that government in turn would provide the requisite developmental projects to the people.
The Minister noted that apart from saving the nation millions of dollars, the platform also offered real-time monitoring of 2.5 billion transactions per day within the telecom sector, including; calls, SMS and monitoring of mobile money transactions as an added component.
Besides, the platform saved the nation GHc205.6 million from the fraud management component since its inception and expected to deliver tax savings of approximately GHc795.9 million.
On mobile money monitoring, it reported an average monthly usage of GHc29.1 billion and GHC 195.8 million transactions, with the Mobile Network Operators generating GHc71 million per month in transaction fees.
Mrs Owusu-Ekuful observed that prior to the introduction of the platform, the nation lost GHc300 million in taxes between 2015 and the first quarter of 2017 due to potential under declaration, while an estimated GHc470 million was saved in taxes between March 2017 and to date, while a potential GHc1.5 billion would have been lost, if the platform had not been implemented.