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E-Levy to enable govt invest in security – Interior Minister

The Minister of Interior, Mr Ambrose Dery, says the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy) would give government the needed financial commitment to continuously invest in the security of the nation.

He stated that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government had dedicated substantive resources to enhance security in the country, and government would need more revenue to sustain the gain.

“Before 2017, the security of the region was nothing to write home about: police personnel were not enough and were also very under resourced. It took the intervention of this government to recruit more police officers and procure enough logistics to boost the performance of their duty”, he stated.

Mr Dery stated this when he took his turn to address participants at Wa in the Upper West Region on Monday at a town hall meeting on the introduction of the E-levy.

He said to further boost the optimism of police officers, backlogs of transfers and promotions were cleared throughout the country to allow them serve the nation without qualms, and all those efforts required huge investments which needed sustenance.

Mr Dery enumerated that 5,000 people were recently recruited into the Police Service, whereas 2,000 persons each were recruited into the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) as well as the Prisons and Immigration Services respectively.

“Going forward, the E-levy will ensure that we have enough revenue to maintain the huge number of youth who have been given employment in the services and also recruit many more to augment the nation’s security effort,” he said.

He explained that other unemployed youth would also receive support to venture into entrepreneurship, adding that other sectors such as health, education and social policies would benefit from the proceeds of the e-levy.

He said the E-levy would serve as a way for government to stand its grounds and develop the country after having been affected by the CoronaVirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

He appealed to Ghanaians, especially residents of the region to accept the E-levy, which according to him would help to develop the country.

Other speakers at the forum included Ken Ofori Atta, Minister of Finance,  Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Minister of Information and Dr Hafiz Bin Salih, the Upper West Regional Minister.  

FROM LYDIA FORDJOUR AND RAFIA ABDUL RAZAK, WA

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