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Ghana Highway Authority is ready to cede the management of some toll booths in the country to private companies.

The Authority believes this will maximise the generation of revenue to bolster the financing of road infrastructure. “We’ve identified a lot of leakages in the collection of tolls which is affecting the revenue expected to be generated from the toll booths,” the Chief Executive of Ghana Highway Authority, Ernest Kingsley Arthur, said to Citi News.

“We are looking at management of the toll plazas. We are thinking of engaging the private sector. Within the next one month, we shall be entering into that contract with that private operator. The terms and conditions of the contract will ensure that we will derive maximum revenue from the toll stations.”

The Minister of Roads and Highways, Mr. Amoako Atta has decried the shortfalls in revenue collection with the sector saying “we are not getting the expected revenue out of the toll booth.”

According to him, after a survey, his Ministry noted that the country was losing between 40 percent of revenue and 80 percent of revenue from our toll booths. Efforts have been made to automate all toll booths in the country in a bid to improve revenue generation, but only four out of the 35 toll booths had been automated.

The four are the Ngleshie Amanfrom, Accra Plaza, Tema Plaza and the Amasaman booths.

The automation is envisioned to increase the toll booth contribution to the road fund.

As at now, the highest contributor to the road fund is the fuel levy.

The Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) raked in GHc1.8 million in 2018 from the toll booths constructed on highways across the country. This was a 4.3 percent increase from the GHc1.79 million figure in 2017.