COPEC praises government for abolishing road tolls
The decision by the government to abolish tolls on all public highways and bridges is welcomed, according to Mr Duncan Amoah, Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC).
According to him, a study of all 36 toll booths around the country revealed that about 400 million cedis was wasted annually due to fuel wastage owing to traffic congestion at those points.
Mr. Amoah made this remark in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the government’s plan to remove tolls, which was revealed by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta when he presented the 2022 Budget Statement to Parliament on Wednesday.
It was unworthy of vehicle owners according to Mr. Amoah to waste 400 million Cedis on gasoline while only contributing 71 million Cedis in toll charges to the government.
He said COPEC’s recommendation to the government to boost the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) charges by 15% to compensate for the revenue shortfall would assist generate funding for development projects.
“Some 400 million cedis go to waste as a result of the toll booths. Now that fuel prices have even gone up, the waste is even likely to go up about 50 pesewas thereabout per minute for the average car with an engine capacity of 2.0,” he added.
“Cars with the bigger engines, burn more fuel while waiting for their turn to pay their tolls of one cedi, thus, people, especially those with bigger engines, will even waste more than what they actually pay in tolls”.
He advised the DVLA to take steps to ensure that transit trucks from neighbouring countries were placed on a system that would allow them to pay tolls, explaining that such vehicles’ operations had a negative impact on the road.
“There must be a certain derivative in getting those trucks that also come from Burkina, Mali and other neighbouring countries to pick products or goods from the ports; there should be a certain mechanism to get them to pay what the ordinary Ghanaian is likely to be paying for at the DVLA”
Mr Ofori-Atta declared on Wednesday that the NPP-led administration had scrapped tolls on all public highways and bridges.
He explained that this was done to boost production while also lowering pollution levels. The action was also meant to reduce the heavy traffic where road tolls were found.
“Mr Speaker, our roads need fixing. Our roads are being fixed. It is true that more roads have been fixed and are being fixed over the last five years than any relative period in the entire history of our nation. We even want to do a lot more and this budget will cater for this,” Mr. Ofori-Atta said.
“That is why for decades, government after government, imposed and maintained tolls on some public roads to raise funds for road construction and maintenance. This is the situation in many countries.
“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.
“To address these challenges, the Government has abolished all tolls on public roads and bridges”, Mr. Ofori stated.
Source: Richard Mensah Adonu | Join our Telegram Group
