Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has proposed an expansion in Ghana’s road-tolling architecture to make it more inclusive and encompassing.
The government in the 2022 budget abolished road tolls after it announced the introduction of the electronic transaction levy (E-Levy). The former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta cited congestion and traffic jams at the toll booths as justification for the decision.
But the government in its midyear budget review announced that road tolls would be reintroduced in 2025.
While speaking at the Ghana Highway Authority’s golden jubilee anniversary, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia noted that the current road tolling system promoted inequality as some persons were less likely to be exposed to tollbooths for road toll collection.
He urged that the current system be broadened to cover all road users before its reintroduction.
“My view is that we need to think about broad-based tolling. The current architecture that we have in tolling tends to exclude even the wealthier parts of the population and so if I live in Cantonment, East Legon, or Ridge, which are high-end neighbourhoods, I will not see a tollbooth.
“But if I live in Kasoa or somewhere else, I am likely to meet a tollbooth on the road, and there seems to be an inequity in tolling, and so I believe that we should look at broad-based tolling.”
