The government has commenced stakeholder engagements aimed at reintroducing road tolls across the country.
Government is in consultation with other relevant stakeholders and their inputs would be considered before the final implementation on modalities on the road toll, Ministry of Finance said.
The schedules of the fees and charges (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2022, (Act 1080) have already been revised by the government in line to resume collecting tolls, after it was hastily suspended in 2021.
Against this backdrop, the Ministry of Finance said in the statement that it has began the procedures necessary to define the toll foundation rates: “We are by this letter sending the recommended rates for input by the Ministry of Roads and Highways to enable this Ministry to finalize the schedule of fees under the upcoming Legislative Instrument,” the ministry noted in reaction to a letter it said was leaked.
The leaked letter, according to the ministry, sought to convey proposed rates for the tolling of roads and highways to the Ministry of Roads and Highways as part of broader consultations on the revenue generation policy.
The Ministry of Roads and Highways on Thursday, November 18, 2021 directed the discontinuation of the collection of tolls on all public roads and bridges across the country.
The directive followed the announcement by the Finance Ministry of the scrapping of tolls on all public roads in the 2022 national budget, explaining that the tolling points had become unhealthy market centres, leading to heavy traffic on our roads, lengthening travel time from one place to another,
Minority reacts
Commenting on the government’s decision to reintroduce the toll, Minority Chief Whip and Ranking Member of Parliament’s Roads and Transport Committee, Governs Kwame Agbodza, said the minority will back the move only if the government will accept to de-cap the tolls.
“The only way the minority will be interested in this discussion at all is to get an assurance that the road fund will totally be de-capped so that the numerous contractors who have worked and whose certificates are lying in the ministry and other agencies will have the ability to get their monies paid to them so that they can be back to the site to fix roads. We are not going to support the government to bring the toll back if it will only bring GH¢ 2.4 billion and then only GH¢1 billion is used for roads and the remainder used for the National Cathedral; we will not be part of this,” he told Accra-based Citi FM.
