The Minister for Roads and Highways, Kwasi Amoako-Attah, has hinted at government’s plan to convert all abandoned tollbooths into decent washrooms for use by motorists.
His comments come on the back of the National Road Safety Authority’s call on the sector Ministry to remove the non-functioning booths to prevent accidents from occurring.
It is however not clear how the government intends to do this, considering how Tollbooths are positioned in the middle of the road.
Addressing the leadership of the Road Contactors Association on Monday, February 7, 2022, Mr. Amoako-Attah said, “we want to refurbish all Tollbooth structures to provide proper and decent washrooms for use by motorists to avoid situations where motorists stop to ease themselves indiscriminately.”
He thus urged the road contractors to support the implementation of the Electronic transaction levy (E-Levy), which will also be used to settle monies owed them.
“When the E-levy is implemented, the road sector will get its fair share. All contractors owed by the government will be paid. A number of deplorable roads will be fixed when the E-Levy is introduced because all contractors we owe will be paid. You are going to benefit directly from its implementation. No serious government will joke with its contractors.”
Cessation of collection of tolls
The Ministry of Roads and Highways directed the discontinuation of the collection of tolls on all public roads and bridges across the country from Thursday, November 18, 2021.
The directive followed the announcement by the Finance Ministry of the scrapping of tolls on all public roads.
The monies raised from tolls go into the Road Funds and are supposed to be used for maintaining public roads.
But government said the tollbooths had become a nuisance and had to be removed.
Meanwhile, it emerged later that government expects the proposed Electronic Transaction Levy to take care of the monies lost to road toll collection.
