The Ranking Member of Parliament’s Roads and Transport Committee, Governs Kwame Agbodza, is pushing for the reintroduction of road tolls.
His call comes after the Roads Minister, Kwasi Amoako-Attah indicated that security personnel will continue to be deployed to the empty tollbooths, to among other things, check speeding trucks destroying the structures.
Speaking to Citi News, Mr. Agbodza argued that the move is not financially sustainable especially when government is struggling to raise revenue.
“He is rather trying to create more jest by saying he will maintain security at post. This is evident of how out of touch the government is becoming. He must be called to order. The tollbooths should only be empty. Motorists in the country have not complained about the payment of road tolls. All that the public complain about is that, they can’t see the effect of the road tolls on the nature of the road.”
“What the government should have done was to prove that they are utilizing the resources appropriately, not to say that they are only going to collect the road tolls.”
He urged the Roads Minister to order the toll collectors back to post “so that we can continue to generate revenue from there, instead of introducing other taxes such as E-Levy.”
The Ministry of Roads and Highways directed the discontinuation of the collection of tolls on all public roads and bridges across the country from Thursday, November 18, 2021.
The directive followed the announcement by the Finance Ministry of the scrapping of tolls on all public roads.
The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, subsequently directed the Roads Minister to reverse that directive, insisting it was illegal and must be immediately withdrawn.
He argued that although the cessation of tolls on public roads was announced in the 2022 budget, it remains a proposal until Parliament approves it.
However, the directive was not heeded by the minister.
