Chairman of Parliament’s Finance Committee, Dr. Mark Assibey Yeboah has accused telecommunication companies in the country of  deliberately making government unpopular.

Dr Assibey Yeboah condemned the telcos over their mode of implementation of the 9% increment in the Communication Service Tax (CST).

Many have complained about the immediate tax deduction after consumers recharge, followed by a text message.

For instance, a recharge of GHc 10 worth of talk time gives consumers GHc9.2 as a result of the tax.

Speaking to Citi News after an Article IV consultation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday, Dr. Assibey Yeboah questioned the motive of the Telcos for implementing the tax in such a manner.

“Somebody is being disingenuous. Previously, they didn’t state it explicitly that if you buy airtime, they take 6 percent and as to why they didn’t state it I don’t know. Somebody thinks that it will make the government unpopular. Now people are complaining. But they were getting 9.40p from Ghc10 airtime just that it wasn’t stated. So somebody is trying to make government unpopular because the actual increase of the tax is just 50 percent.”

“The telcos want to make gov’t unpopular because why didn’t send the text mages of the deduction when the tax was 6 percent. They were paying the government and we knew how much we were collecting from them so if any body tells me they were absolved by the Telcos, then that is absurd”, he fumed.


Ghanaians begun paying more for communication services following the implementation of the 9% Communication Services Tax on October 1, 2019.