Ghana’s mobile money market expansion defies taxation headwinds

Cameroon, Uganda, Tanzania, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, and Kenya are among the sub-Saharan African nations considering rolling out mobile money taxes. Few success stories exist.

Mobile money levies are attractive to many highly indebted African nations in desperate need of fiscal room. However, building a digital network is a costly endeavour by design, and most companies rely on low tariffs to incentivise highly price-sensitive African consumers at the onset. High taxation, applied prematurely, could upend these business models and stifle growth for companies that have promised investors high growth, sometimes at the expense of delayed profits. 

Few African countries, like Cameroon and Zimbabwe, have remained resolute under loud protests against taxing electronic mobile money transactions. Other African nations, like Tanzania and Malawi, have been less defiant, promptly retracting their tax proposals following mounting public outcry.  

However, Ghana pushed full steam ahead with its 1.75% e-levy on