Claim: COVID-19 Levy remained in force even after the 2026 budget presentation
Source: Trobu MP & Facebook user
Verdict: Misleading
Researched by Gifty Tracy Aminu
Shortly after the reading of the 2026 budget, the Member of Parliament for Trobu, Gloria Owusu, appeared in the media, claiming the Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, lied about abolishing the COVID-19 Levy.
Speaking to a news blogger whose video went viral on the evening of November 13, 2025, Gloria Owusu said: “It is not true that the COVID levy has been removed. Today, I am a Member of Parliament, but I am a businesswoman. I prepared a duty which I can show you. The COVID levy is still in place.
“If the minister says he has removed it, I don’t know whether it will start reflecting from tomorrow, but as we speak, everyone who clears goods at the port and anyone who passes through the various borders with their goods knows that the levy is still in place and has not been removed.”
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GhanaFact also monitored a Facebook user who shared a receipt of purchased items, after the budget was read, to suggest the Levy was still being charged and not abolished as the minister had stated in his presentation.
This fact-check will analyse when and how a repeal bill takes effect.
Fact-check
The Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, announced the abolition of the COVID-19 Levy on the floor of Parliament during the reading of the 2026 budget on November 13, 2025.
The Minister presented before Parliament a number of Bills, Regulations, and Memoranda to be considered by Members of the House, and among the Bills were the COVID-19 Health Recovery Levy (Repeal) Bill.
To fact-check the Trobu MP’s claim that the COVID-19 levy had not been scrapped just by the announcement by the minister, GhanaFact contacted the Executive Director of Africa Centre for Parliamentary Affairs (ACEPA), Dr Rasheed Draman, who said;
“So first of all, to repeal a law in Ghana, it has to be done through the introduction of a new law or through a vote of at least 2/3 of the Members of Parliament. In this particular instance, when the minister appeared before Parliament, he presented the budget statement, which is eventually going to lead to the Appropriations Act.
“The Appropriations Act is a law that, among other things, empowers the government to spend money and so forth, and part of that is through which the COVID-19 levy will be repealed. Until the Appropriation Act is passed and takes effect, we are going to continue to see that COVID nuisance on people’s purchases and so on.”
According to Dr Draman, there is an intention to abolish the tax, but the process is not complete yet.
“It’s not like when he shows up in Parliament, says it and immediately it takes effect, no. There are processes. It’s only in a dictatorship and a military regime that some of these have immediate effects.
“They will say decree with immediate effect. In a democracy, you have to go through a certain procedure, and the procedure in this particular case is that the Appropriations Act 2025 would have to be passed for some of these things to take effect.”
Repeal of a tax handle: E-Levy as a case in point
In the first budget reading of the current John Dramani Mahama led-administration on March 11, 2025, the government announced the repeal of a similar tax, the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy.) The table below shows the processes employed before the final removal of the levy.
| Date | Process |
| March 11, 2025 | The Minister for Finance announced the removal of the Electronic Transfer Levy in the 2025 budget. |
| March 26, 2025 | The motion to repeal the levy was debated in Parliament and approved. |
| April 2, 2025 | President John Mahama signed the E-Levy repeal bill into law. |
| April 3, 2025 | The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) announced that the tax had been scrapped and was no longer being charged. |
This illustrates that the abolishing of a law does not take immediate effect on the day of the announcement to abolish. It has to be laid before Parliament, debated and approved by Parliament, sent to the President to assent before implementation by the mandated agency or authority.
MP reacts to viral critique
In the wake of the controversy, the MP of Trobu issued a statement on her Facebook page to indicate that her comment was misunderstood.
“My attention has been drawn to circulating posts on social media suggesting that I do not appreciate how Parliament operates, particularly regarding when measures announced in the national budget take effect. These claims are based on a deliberate misunderstanding of comments I made during a media interview following the presentation of the 2026 Budget,” the statement partly said.
Verdict
The claim by the MP for Trobu that the COVID-19 levy remains in force despite the Finance Minister’s announcement of its removal is misleading.
