Cabinet has approved increases in road tolls to enable government meet the cost of road maintenance.
Accordingly, details on the increase levels are being worked out for implementation next year, Roads and Highways Minister, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, disclosed in an interview yesterday.
“We are going to increase the tolls. As for the tolls we have even worked with the ministry of finance and in due course you will hear that,” he affirmed.
The minister hinted on the sidelines of a stakeholders’ workshop to solicit inputs for the preparation of the 2016 Budget.
He said presently road tolls contribute about 10 per cent to the road fund and this was insufficient considering the quantum of maintenance work that is to be carried out.
Government is currently also mulling ways to generate more revenue into the National Road Fund (NRF) which includes whether to increase the fuel levy.
The levy is a component of the NRF, which is a dedicated fund for road maintenance created through an Act of Parliament, Act 537(1997).
In addition, plans are far advanced to automate the road tolling system as a measure to plug leakages in the toll collections.
mahamaThe minister’s comments were in direct response to a call earlier by the Association of Road Contractors (ASOROC) for increases in the road tolls and the fuel levy.
According to the President of the ASOROC, Mr. Ebo Hewton, government for two years now owes local contractors for work done on some roads including the cocoa roads.
The development, he stated, was collapsing the road sector as contractors have been saddled with huge debts from loans they accessed from banks which they took for the execution of projects.
Mr. Hewton also bemoaned delays in release of funds to contractors which, he observed, often affected the quality of road work as well as eroded any financial gains the contractors were to make.
He, therefore, made a strong case for the increase in the road tolls and fuel levy to shore up the cash stream into the road fund and ensure sustainability.
Speaking to Today, Mr. Hewton observed that roads were not being maintained at the time that they are supposed to.
“If you tar a road, averagely every 5 years you should go back and do what we call resealing. It’s not being done and so what is happening is that these roads that have been tarred over a period, start developing potholes. You get back, and you have to do fresh reconstruction which is highly expensive. If you had done the resealing within that 5-year-period, this problem wouldn’t have cropped up,” he stressed.
He said the same applied to feeder or bush roads which require grading after every rainfall but are left to deteriorate due to lack of funds.
He maintained that for the economy to survive, especially an agric based economy like Ghana, the country requires good road network.
However, if farm produce cannot reach markets and are left to rot on farms due to poor nature of roads the country loses.
The ASOROC president observed that the increases in the road tolls were long overdue saying the last time the tolls went up was in 2010.
Ghana arguably has the lowest toll in the West Africa Sub-region charging regular cars only 50 pesewas whereas Togo charges about CF400 (about 1US Dollars or 100 cents).
Mr. Hewton said in Zambia motorists pay US$2 for toll which when compared to what is paid in Ghana is woefully inadequate.
The sector minister also made a strong case for the review of the Road Fund Act to bring it in line with current needs of the country.
He told Today that as at the time the Road Fund Act came into effect the road network in Ghana was a little above 30,000.
He noted that the act had contemplated that at a certain time and date it could be recording 10 cents per litre, but it has not gotten there yet.
“We’ve actually retrogressed. Whiles the road network has expanded, contributions to the Fund has actually reduced,” the minister emphasised
That, he intimated, places a responsibility on Ghanaians to go back and see what the original intention of the Act was and see whether that goal was being achieved.
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