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A former Member of Parliament for Suhum, Frederick Opare Ansah has said the e-levy law has given the Finance Minister some discretionary powers hence, he is optimistic that pensioners may be exempted from the payment.

His comment comes after a former Deputy Minister of Finance, Kweku George Ricketts-Hagan raised issues against the involvement of pensioners in the payment of the e-levy.

Speaking on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday, April 2, Mr Rickets Hagan who is also Cape Coast South Member of Parliament said “There are actually intellectual or academic reasons why we think the e-levy was a bad one. One of them is obviously pensions.

“We have talked about savings, we have talked about money on people’s wallet that government just want to take it away and pensions became one of them.

“The other side also as I mentioned is the common man’s thinking that this government has not really been a protector of the public purse but rather they have been squandering the public purse.

“All these things were problematic put all together, became the reason why the nation was rejecting the e-levy.”

But reacting to him, Mr Opare Ansah said “The Minister is usually given some discretionary powers and he can come with regulation. So these are some of the things that as they roll out the application of the law, will come to light and expect the minister to quickly go by regulations.

“The other one is the practice note that will be issued by the GRA, that is the way which they will be able to provide these little exemptions because the law has given the power to roll out these taxes notes in a way that will make the application of this law most effective.

“The issues they raised about pensioners, all these issues can be addressed through regulation.”