A civil engineer, Abdulai Mahama, says even as tolls are being reintroduced to some roads in the country as a result of government’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in road construction, it is necessary for government to reintroduce the general tolls it had zero rated earlier this year.

He explained that it does not make any economic sense to zero rate tolls especially considering how difficult it has become for government to raise funds to service roads.

He noted that should the government remain rooted in its decision to zero rate all other roads not constructed under a PPP agreement, the country might soon be faced with many deplorable roads and very little funds to fix them.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, he called on government to reconsider its decision and bring back the tolls.

“I am of the view that aside the Private sector coming in with the toll, government should not stop the toll on its own on other roads because of the burden that government has in trying to maintain the roads to pay other local contractors who are doing the pothole patching or to improve the riding quality of a lot of our roads in the country.

“So I understand, let’s say government decides to allocate the most trafficked roads to the private individuals or companies to operate, what of let’s say Aburi to Koforidua which is not heavily trafficked? What of other roads which are not heavily trafficked?

“I think that the unpopular decision – I remember I heard Dr. Asenso-Gyambibi saying that decision to actually terminate the toll levy was unpopular, in fact it doesn’t make any sense to some of us because I think across the globe, Ghana will be among maybe one or two countries which is not tolling their roads now,” he said.

He noted that building and maintaining roads are currently very expensive, and it would serve the government a great deal to generate much needed funds through tolls.

“If you’re doing a dual carriage now in Ghana, to and from, and if you take let’s say Ofankor and you’re just taking one kilometer of a dual carriage to and back, so you’re having a four lane, it’s in the region of 3.2, 3.4 million US dollars, an asphaltic binder concrete cost.  So that is quite expensive, and its maintenance is also very expensive,” he stated.

He added that “You know on the books of government there are a lot of the contractors who are doing spot improvement, weeding along the roadside, weeding along the carriage ways and medians who have not been paid for years.

“So I’m of the view that let’s capture those heavily trafficked roads and let government engage the PPP but government should not stop the tolling of the other roads so that we can expand faster.

“Otherwise, we’ll put so much concentration on these motorway and express roads because government cannot find money to even do maintenance.”