The Ministry of Roads and Highways states that physically challenged toll workers were paid an additional two months after the cessation of toll collection by the government.
The physically challenged toll workers have appealed to the government to fulfil its promise of paying them their salaries, intended to be used as startup capital for new jobs, following the cessation of toll collection in 2021.
Last month, the toll workers staged a protest at the Roads Ministry in an attempt to seek an audience with the Minister regarding the payment of their unpaid salary arrears. However, this move yielded no results.
Minister for Roads and Highways, Kwasi Amoako-Attah, speaking to Citi News, stated, “If anybody says that the disabled people were shabbily treated, not taken care of, and not paid, it is not true. The government was even magnanimous. They were paid, even two months extra up to the end of December 31, 2021, ifmy memory serves me right.”
On November 18, 2021, the Ministry of Roads and Highways hastily directed the immediate discontinuation of toll collection on all public roads and bridges across the country after the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, hinted at a similar exercise in his 2022 Budget Statement.
The finance minister stated that the measure was intended to prevent congestion and pollution in and around the vicinities where toll booths were situated.
However, many Ghanaians, including former toll workers, argue that the measure has not only worsened the economic well-being of those who depended on the booths for their income but has also caused financial loss to the state as the booths are wasting away while the nation continues to pay loans contracted to build them.
A statement by the spokesperson, Rashad Mohamed, on November 4, 2023, says, “Some of us have acquired skills; some of us are shoemakers, phone repairers, and computer repairers. It has been two years now since we have been out of work, so they should give us our money, and we will use it to find something to do with it since most of us have acquired some skills.”