Former Dep. Finance Minister challenges government’s $99bn MoMo transaction value claim
A former Deputy Minister of Finance, Mona Quratey, has challenged the $99 billion Mobile Money value claim by government.
Minister of State at the Finance Ministry, Charles Adu Boahen, had said in an interview that available data indicates that MoMo transaction for 2020 was $99 billion.
“So Mobile Money in 2016, total value of transaction is about 20 billion dollars which was about 79 billion cedis. In 2020, when we have the latest data it had skyrocketed to 99bn dollars.
“In 2017, it went to 35bn dollars about 156bn cedis, then it went to 48 bn dollars in 2018 of about 223 bn cedis.
“In fact, in 2020 the number was 99bn dollars, a thousand transactions per second. All government is asking for is a small share,” he said.
However, Ms Quartey is of the view that if the reflections by the governments are true, then the country shouldn’t have a deficit.
“So they gave us 2017 numbers and last year’s number as 99 billion. I am glad this has come up. Fellow Ghanaians, let us all know that this 99 billion is not a total 99 billion, it is cumulative. When I send money to Dzifa and Dizifa sends that same money, let us say I send 10 cedis, it is not counted as the same and Dzifa send 10 cedis to Enyonam it is not counted as the same 10.
“From me to Dzifa is 10 cedis, from Dzifa to Enyonam becomes 20 and Enyonam to Phillip becomes 30. Meanwhile, it is the same 10 cedis. So it is not actually 99 billion real money that has moved anywhere. It is the same money that has moved round.
“This 99 billion figure that is being bandied around is giving a very strange impression. If there is indeed 99 billion dollars that is straight money in the system, how do you have a deficit? If that sum of money can circulate then why do we have a deficit, so it is not true.
“What is true is that, that same money being counted several rounds as it moves from a different person to another person to another person,” she stressed.
Read: Ghana losing $2bn in tax revenue due to undervaluation of gold exports – ISSER
MoMo overtakes all payment platforms in Ghana with Ghs 89 billion transactional value
The Mobile Money (MoMo) platform in July 2021 overtook all forms of payment platforms in the country.
Per data made available by the Bank of Ghana (BoG), the transactional value of Mobile Money is now bigger than the transactional value of the combined payment platforms in the country, indicating that the platform is now the most widely used and accepted form of payment.
The BoG’s Summary of Economic and Financial report for the month of July, revealed that the mobile money payment platform hit a transactional value of Ghs 89.1 billion at end-June 2021, representing a 96.6 percent jump from same period last year, thus, making it the fastest-growing payment system in the country.
Other payment platforms such as cheques, ACH direct debit and credit, ezwich, Gh-link, and Ghipss Instant Pay (GIP) – recorded transactional value of Ghs 26.3 billion – one third of the value of the mobile money platform.
Cheques recorded transactional value of Ghs 17.9 billion; ACH direct debit recorded Ghs105.4 million; ACH direct credit registered Ghs 5.1 billion; ezwich too recorded Ghs 710.7 million; Gh-link also hit Ghs 33.1 million; and GIP registered Ghs 2.5 billion in transactional value.
This essentially means that mobile money still remains the preferred and most convenient payment systems platform for users, as it can be easily accessed by all mobile phone users.
Mobile money transactions to hit Ghs 1 trillion in value this year – Ken Ofori-Atta
Meanwhile, Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has said mobile money transactions in the country is expected to hit a total of Ghs 1 trillion in value this year – 2022.
The projected growth in mobile money transactions by the Finance Minister, comes on the back of the surge in the value of mobile money transactions by more than Ghs 500 billion in the last five years.
The value of mobile money transactions as measured by the mobile money interoperability platform implemented by government, increased from Ghs 35 billion in 2015 to Ghs 570 billion in 2020.
“Ghana saw an increase of Ghs 400 billion in mobile money transactions last year and possibly this could increase to a trillion cedis next year,” remarked the Finance Minister at Standard Chartered’s Digital Banking, Innovation and Fintech Festival.
