Government to review road tolls

Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, says government will review existing road tolls and align them with current market rates to ensure improvement on the roads.

That, he said, would form part of the framework for promoting burden sharing as government sought to transform the road and infrastructure sector in a post-COVID era.

Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, also the Caretaker Finance Minister, said this on Friday when he presented the 2021 Budget Statement and Economic Policy, on the theme: “Consolidated, Completion and Continuation” titled W)N YA W) HI33, in Ga, to wit “We are moving Forward Budget.”

He said in 2021, government would also amend the Fees and Charges (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2018 (Act 983) that governed the setting of Rates and Tolls to accommodate an automatic annual adjustment that would be pegged at 2020’s average annual inflation.

This year, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) would intensify audits and institute measures to recover all outstanding debts and enforce collections in the extractive industry, he said.

The Minster said a study of the downstream petroleum sector showed there was still the challenge of under-reporting and evasion of taxes by some industry players.

He said the GRA, in conjunction with the relevant agencies, would mount a campaign to deal with the unlawful acts.

Mr Kyei Mensah-Bonsu said data showed that under the Akufo-Addo Government the increase in petroleum prices was the lowest in the Fourth Republic.

“In the year 2020 for example, there was a cumulative net decrease in petrol prices at the pump by 7.46 percent and diesel by 9.53 percent, between 2009 and 2012 average petrol prices increased by 29.5 percent annually,” he said.

He said between 2013 and 2016, average petrol prices increased by 24 percent annually but between 2017 and 2020, the average petrol prices increased was at 8.26 percent annually.