Toll Booths Make GH₵36,000 Daily...

Painstaking investigations conducted by Today newspaper has revealed that the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) makes a whopping GH₵48,000 daily at the toll booths on the Accra-Tema Motorway but persistently fail to rehabilitate the deplorable nature of the motorway. Even though officials at the Ghana Road Fund (GRF), Ministry of Roads and Highway, GHA and Angel Data and Telecom Services (AD&TS) were tight-lipped on how much the tollbooths rake in as revenue daily, "Today" discovered that each toll booth on the Motorway rakes in GH₵3,000 a day. And by simple calculation the 12 toll booths on the Tema-Motorway and Ashaiman-Accra road makes 36,000.00 a day. The road tolls was to see to the periodic and routine maintenance of the roads, which include rehabilitation, upgrading, road safety activities and other road projects to be carried out by the GHA, Department of Feeder Roads and Roads Safety Commission. The money appears not to be used in rehabilitating many of the deplorable roads in the country which the Tema-Motorway is no exception. Today newspaper can report that this can be attributed to the fact that some toll booth collectors, engaged by the government to collect tolls have been sitting on the cash. There are a countless number of potholes that can be found on the motorway. And this has been the result of many of the accidents that have occurred on the highways. Some of the potholes on the motorway can be described as negligence on the part of those responsible for its maintenance. But the tolled highway has had hikes in the rates over recent years and yet no form of repairs in more than a decade. "Today" discovered that most of the bridges on the motorway are in bad shapes thereby exposing motorist and pedestrians to danger. Set against the fact that government is ranking in an estimated GH₵30 million from tolls and another GH₵20 million in vehicle user fees annually since the February 2010 increases in road tolls, taxes, levies, the state of the motorway today raises more questions than answers. The automation of the Accra-Tema Motorway toll booths with the view to reducing revenue leakage and raking in significant income for development however, failed to reduce vehicle congestion on the Accra-Tema Motorway, as there is always a long queue of vehicles. The automation machine, which was fixed by AD&TS has accounting software that takes stock of every vehicle that plies the route. The new system is also intended to plug any loophole and remove avenues for corruption in the Manuel collection of tools. Today�s recent report concerning streetlights on the motorway has still not been addressed.