The Minister of Roads and Highways, Mr Joe Gidisu, has advocated the imposition of a levy on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) used as fuel for road transportation. “Based on the user pay principle for which a levy is charged on petrol and diesel, it is my expectation that consideration and support will be given for a levy to be placed on LPG used as fuel for road transportation," he said. According to the Minister, with the increasing rate at which vehicles were being converted in order to use the LPG as fuel, thereby causing occasional shortages of the commodity, there was the urgent need to place a levy on it to raise sufficient funds to finance road maintenance. Mr Gidisu said that in a speech read on his behalf at a public forum organised by the Road Fund Management Board to solicit views on ways to adequately resource and manage the fund in a sustainable manner. The Minister said the government was exploring other financial methods such as the Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) system, the Maintain, Operate and Transfer (MOT) system, the, Public Private Partnership (PPP) and the long-term pre-financing, to carry out road maintenance. He noted that there was a 40 per cent shortfall in the road maintenance budget visvis the revenue the Road Fund generated and stressed the need to find innovative ways of making up for the deficit. He said the government had secured an GH¢85-million loan facility on behalf of the Road Fund Board to settle arrears owed contractors since 2008, while another GH¢ 109 million had just been obtained to meet the current indebtedness to the contractors. "Since the beginning of 2010, an amount of GH¢ 156.7 million has been paid to contractors for works done on maintenance contracts which were in arrears," Mr Gidisu said. The chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Roads and Highways, Mr Michael Boampong, said the country faced a challenge to make the road infrastructure in the country the best. Mr Boampong noted that the task was to make the necessary road infrastructure investment by providing the funds to maintain the road network. The Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Kofi Opoku-Manu, said the deplorable condition of some roads in the rural areas of the Ashanti Region made it very difficult for farmers to cart their produce to marketing centres. Mr Opoku-Manu urged road users, who were the direct beneficiaries of investments in the road sector, to support the government by co-operating in the payment of road tolls and user fees. Source: Daily Graphic