The government on Wednesday defended the retention of a COVID-19 Levy, rejecting calls from the business community to scrap the tax.

The levy, introduced to fund pandemic-related expenses, has drawn criticism from businesses arguing it is no longer necessary and is harming investment.

However, Minister of State at the Finance Ministry, Abena Osei-Asare told parliament's Public Accounts Committee that the government still needed the revenue to address lingering financial fallout from the pandemic, including vaccine costs.

She said: “The threat of COVID-19 is no more. But the impact of Covid we still feel. There are so many things we did during the pandemic that we have had to take care of. The effect of Covid is still with us and that money is being used to address part of the effect of Covid 19. Covid is gone, but the effect is still with us. We still have to pay for vaccines.”

She maintained that the COVID-19 levy is part of the government's revenue stream for 2024

“Also once Parliament passed the Covid-19 levy, approval of the revenues that should come in in 2024, it is still one of the revenues that we are collecting as a government,” she added.