Road tolls reintroduction muddled with confusion - KSM

Kwaku Sintim-Misa, popularly known as KSM has expressed that he believes the discussion around the reemergence of road tolls is disorganized and unclear after Minister of Roads and Highways, Kwasi Amoako-Atta announced the reintroduction of the road toll levies.

According to the talk show host in an interview with GhanaWeb's Doreen Abanema Abayaa, the reason the government is reintroducing road tolls should be adequately explained to Ghanaians in a manner that is more understandable to them.

“So, basically, I thought that the whole thing was muddled with confusion. Number one, it shouldn’t have been canceled at all; number two, they just decided to bring it back. Why are you bringing it back?" he said.

“Are you bringing it back because you made a mistake canceling it in the first place? So just address Ghanaian people and tell us, 'Listen, Ghanaian people, it was an error canceling this thing, we made a mistake and are trying to reverse it. We’re going to bring it back and when we bring it back we are going to make it more digital, we are going to do this, we are going to do that, to improve it', KSM suggested.

Also, KSM expressed his dissatisfaction with the government's cancellation of the road tolls as he believes they are necessary for national development.

“To cancel paying road tolls in Ghana, I thought it was very unfortunate, especially if you’re going to use the road tolls to actually help improve the state of roads, then you need to collect road tolls even if Ghanaians will not understand the importance of road tolls. This is where you can come out and state clearly that we need to improve our road tolls. We need a road coming from Accra to Kumasi, these things don't just happen.

“They come from the tolls that we pay. Even if they thought that road tolls were not as effective and it was not collecting as much, then we need to sit down and actually come up with a strategy of how best we can get the road tolls to work. Because there is no question in my mind that they (road tolls) are needed, especially in a country that is economically harder with raising revenue,” he disclosed.

The television icon asserted that he has no objections to road tolls and that the minister could have just increased toll prices rather than getting rid of them.

He pointed out that the government didn't have to say Ghana pays one of the lowest tolls in the world when they were trying to convince Ghanaians to accept the new tolls.

"...I didn’t think it was right to cancel it but where I just said that it was a bit confusing was that, even if it comes back, we will have to be paying higher prices and then Ghana is the only country that pays the lowest rate and all of that, that was thrown into the discussion, I thought was very very unnecessary.

“If we are paying road tolls why don’t we increase it, why cancel the whole thing, and say what we are paying wasn’t enough? Don’t cancel it, you increase it,” KSM expressed.

As part of the 2022 budget presentation, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Attah, announced that the government would eliminate road tolls despite opposition.

Making a U-turn, the government told parliament that "the fiscal policy measures to underpin the 2023 Budget for consideration and approval by Parliament include the reintroduction of tolls on selected public roads and highways with a renewed focus on leveraging technology in the collection to address the inefficiencies characterized by the previous toll collection regime."

ADA/BB