Cabinet considers increase in road tolls

Back (lead) April 24/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

THE present minimum of GH5p paid as road user fees (road tolls) across the country is expected to be raised to GH50p by the close of the year.
The 1,000-per cent increase is to enable the Ministry of Transportation to raise enough funds for road maintenance and expansion in the country, according to the sector Minister, Dr Richard Anane.
He told the Daily Graphic that a proposal to that effect was currently before Cabinet, awaiting its approval before implementation.
Dr Anane was optimistic that the green light would be given before the end of the year, judging from the millions of Ghana cedis likely to be raised to support the sector’s accelerated development.
Consequently, he said, there would be more toll roads in the country, particularly the newly constructed ones.
He mentioned the Accra-Cape Coast , Kumasi-Techiman, Tema-Aflao, Techiman-Kintampo and Wenchi-Wa roads as some of the toll ones.
In justifying the rationale behind the proposal, Dr Anane said the cost of maintenance of roads and the amount needed to construct new ones and expand some of the existing ones was expensive.
“We cannot always rely on the country’s development partners to fund all the amount required for our infrastructural development,” he said.
Over the period 2002-2007, the government committed a total of $616.75 million to maintenance of the road network in the country. The amount was matched by development partners’ contribution of $219.61 million.
Within the period, the country also saw a road network expansion from the level of 48,630 kilometres in 2002 to the present level of 62,954 kilometres , a move which is in line with the government’s decentralisation policy and the creation of more political districts or municipalities.
It was against this background that the sector minister reiterated the need for the road user fees to be increased to enable the government to raise more funds from within to take care of the existing roads and also be able to fund some new ones.
Dr Anane said the country had not been able to achieve the Road Sector Development Programme (RSDP) road condition mix target of 59 per cent good, 27 per cent fair and 14 per cent poor by the end of the programme.
He attributed the failure partly to what he described as the “dilutional effect of the significant road network expansion” in the country.
Present statistics indicate that as of the end of 2007, the country had a total of 62, 954 kilometres of roads out of which 46 per cent was good, 35 per cent fair and 19 per cent poor.
Dr Anane said RSDP, the strategic investment programme which fully commenced in 2002, was winding down by June 27, 2008, pending the submission of the evaluation report on the performance of the programme.
He said the country and the people stood to gain if people paid a little more for the nation to have good things that would eventually lead to growth and greater development.
Dr Anane buttressed his points by saying that in spite of the fact that the government was unable to meet its targets as per the RSDP, there was enough evidence to prove that the frequency of trips to health facilities increased by about 180 per cent, while average household income per month also shot up three times.
Vehicle waiting times (minutes) reduced by about 100 per cent, with farm gate prices of major produce such as maize increasing by a maximum of 68 per cent.
With respect to savings in travel time to a health facility, the impact study recorded a saving time of about 60 per cent.