Return of the road tolls

Story: Joyce Kpeglo

The Minister of Finance, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam has declared that the government plans on restoring road and bridge tolls in 2025 during the presentation of the 2024 mid-year fiscal policy review on Tuesday 24th July in Accra.

He also announced that the government will allocate GH¢1.5 billion to settle outstanding claims from financial management companies.

“Mr. Speaker, Cabinet has approved the establishment of a framework for the reintroduction of road and bridge tolls in 2025,” he stated.

Dr Amin said that these decisions were part of an overall strategy to enhance infrastructure management and funding.

The minister emphasized the government’s commitment to ensuring that toll revenue is managed effectively and distributed to significant infrastructure projects.

Prior to this declaration, Ghana’s new Roads and Highways Minister, Francis Asenso-Boakye, emphasized the need of tolling roads and announced that his administration is making an effort to re-establish road tolls during an interview with TV3 on Monday, June 10.

‘Many countries use the road tolls they receive to fund maintenance. So, at our ministry, we’ve begun the process by engaging numerous stakeholders to secure their support for bringing the road toll back. This is quite crucial. He said.

He added that he had ‘ never seen a serious country that doesn’t toll its roads,”

These announcements are a significant move in the government’s attempts to rebuild Ghana’s transport infrastructure, following the ban of toll collection which took effect on 18th November 2021.

Background

Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta announced the Government’s proposal to ban collection of road and bridge tolls during the 2022 budget reading in Parliament.

He indicated that the tolling system had played a crucial role in funding the expansion of Ghana’s road infrastructure.

He stated that ‘However, over the years, the tolling points have become unhealthy market centres, led to heavy traffic on our roads, lengthened travel time from one place to another, and impacted negatively on productivity. The congestion generated at the tolling points, besides creating these inconveniences, also leads to pollution in and around those vicinities’

Mr Ofori Atta added that “To address these challenges, the Government has abolished all tolls on public roads and bridges. This takes effect immediately when the Budget is approved. The toll collection personnel will be reassigned. The expected impact on productivity and reduced environmental pollution will more than off-set the revenue forgone by removing the tolls.

In 2021, Deputy Finance minister, Charles Adu Boahen, stated on Citi FM’s Eye Witness news the money that the money that would have been paid as road tolls will now be taken care of by the 1.75 percent Electronic Transaction Levy(E-Levy)

Though the levy will affect Ghanaians who do not use tolled roads, Mr. Boahen said the government was trying to share the burden of levies to develop road infrastructure.

Good news to toll collectors and hawkers

When the suspension of the tool booths were announced, Many hawkers expressed displeasure for the disruption in their business which hinged on the long traffic congestion at the toll booths. This displeasure was also registered by some newspaper vendors, who also conducted aggressive sales at toll booths.

Also, Several toll workers on Tuesday, 30th November staged a demonstration protesting against the government’s decision to suspend the collection of road tolls.

The aggrieved workers lamented that the decision had rendered them jobless, a situation affecting them and their dependents.

‘They promised to reassign us to new jobs but we do not trust them on that. If there were jobs available, they would have given us new jobs. The minister is a liar and we are disappointed in him’ one worker said.

The Secretary of the Ghana toll workers group, Edward Duncan presented a petition on their concerns to Parliament.

After two years of the suspension, the reintroduction of toll booths means that there will be an available market for hawkers and new or old toll booth workers will be employed.

Intense traffic again

Civil Engineer, Engineer Abdulai Mahama stated that Government’s decision to abolish toll booths will not end traffic congestion in the country since the toll booths were not the sole cause of the challenge during Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, on Thursday, November 18, 2021.

He cited for instance, that on roads such as the Pokuase, Ofankor and Amasaman stretches, there are no toll booths, yet these are some of the routes that record huge vehicular traffic.

He, thus, urged the government to explore other solutions, including expanding the roads.

“Reengineering the tollbooth areas is a factor. Government should not scrap the tollbooth but redesign them. And it’s not compulsory that the tollbooth should be at the same location. When you have done a very detailed traffic impact assessment you have the report at your disposal and then you now readjust it to design the road,” he said.

Although suspension of toll booths had not taken away traffics jams completely, heavy traffic jams on Kasoa road for instance especially at former toll booth points has decreased significantly.

The crucial question then is what measures have government put in place to ensure that the intense traffic jam canker does not resurface when toll booths are reintroduced in 2025.

Is E-levy not sufficient enough?

One of the justifications that was given for the scrapping of toll booths was the introduction of the E-levy tax as a source of revenue generation for road maintenance and boosting of the overall economy of Ghana.

The introduction of this tax met fierce resistance and criticisms by various sectors and Ghanaians however many have coped with it till now.

The reintroduction of the toll booths are making people question the effectiveness of E-levy. According The Business and Financial times dubbed E-Levy vs Road Tolls: Assessing the impact on revenue, economy and businesses, The government hoped to generate GHs 1.15 billion($ 198 million) from e-Levy; as of September 2021,the revenue generated was only my GHs216.78 million($ 37million) while the road toll according to the government generated GHs 39million( $6.7 million) monthly before it was canceled.

Various media outlets have reported on Ghanaians displeasure of the reintroduction of raid tolls and their call for abandonment of the decision or taking of E-levy. Minority in parliament also registered their criticisms on the reintroduction of the road tolls,deeming the government as inconsistent.

There are crucial questions that the government needs to answer. What are the various measures in place to prevent toll booths centers from becoming ‘unhealthy market centers’. How does the government plan to lessen traffic congestions that ‘lengthens travel time which negatively impacts productivity’?

If the government was so certain that E-levy could sufficiently fund maintenance and boost the infrastructure, is the road toll necessary? What went wrong?