Tag: Toll booth

  • Ghanaian spotted cooking in toll booth on Tema Motorway road

    Ghanaian spotted cooking in toll booth on Tema Motorway road

    A viral video circulating on social media suggests that a toll booth on the Accra-Tema motorway road has been occupied by an individual as residence.

    It is unknown when the said individual moved into what is said to have been an abandoned booth.

    However, what can be confirmed is that the toll booth is currently not serving its purpose – that is raking in revenue for the government.

    Per the footage, a shirtless man can be seen cooking in the structure. A utensil is seen placed on a coal pot with vapour emanating from it.

    The situation has taken many users on social media by surprise.

    Payment of toll on public roads ceased in November 2021 as part of policy measures announced by government under the 2022 Budget. As such, toll booths were unoccupied by workers tasked to collect tolls.

    Per reports, some toll booths were converted into washrooms.

    But the recent video comes as a surprise as it is expected that toll booths in the country should have been revamped for operation.

    In November 2022, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta announced that the government will reintroduce the collection of road toll on selected roads in the country in 2023.

    The reintroduction of the road toll is one of the revenue measures contained in the 2023 budget presented to Parliament by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta last week.

  • Bring back tolls through 2023 budget – Former tollbooth attendants demand

    Former workers of the various toll booths across the country are demanding the reintroduction of toll collections.

    They want government to make such an announcement in the 2023 Budget Statement, scheduled to be read in Parliament on November 30, 2022.

    The Transport Ministry on November 18, 2021, announced an immediate cessation of the collection of tolls.

    The action was taken after government claimed there was chaos at various tollbooths following an announcement the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta made in the 2022 budget on the cessation of such revenue collection.

    Speaking to Citi News a year after they were laid off, Secretary to the Ghana Toll Workers Union Edward Duncan said toll workers have been forced back on the streets while others face eviction from their landlords.

    “Most of my colleagues are knocking on the doors of companies, but the jobs are not there, so we hope that the Government will understand or know that they made a mistake with that policy [cancellation] and then they have to reverse it and come back.”

    “We are hoping and looking at the announcement they will make concerning toll collection. We are keen on that because it has been a year since the tolls were cancelled and there is no livelihood and there is nothing for us,” he lamented.

    Many Ghanaians condemned the cancellation and demanded its immediate reversal.

    The Minority Caucus in Parliament demanded its reinstatement but the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu praised the cancellation saying it was timely implemented to save lives and properties.

    Source: Citinews

  • Government working on plans to re-engage toll workers – Deputy minister

    The government is currently engaging with Toll and Route Management Limited to develop other employment modules for the re-engagement of toll workers, Mr Bright Wireku-Brobbey, the Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, has announced.

    He said as part of plans to restore the workers and cushion them, the government paid their salaries for the remaining time on their contracts that is November and December 2021.

    Mr Wireku-Brobbey told Parliament in Accra, on Friday when he appeared to answer a question asked by Mr Kwadjo Asante, Member of Parliament of Suhum, on the plans put in place to reinstate Ghanaians who lost their jobs as a result of the cessation of the road tolls.

    He said the time of the suspension of toll collection, a total of 784 toll workers were engaged by the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) and Toll Route Management Limited, a private company under a contract that was set to expire in December 2021.

    “Mr Speaker, out of the 784 contract workers, 517 of them were engaged by the Toll and Route Management Limited, and 214 workers by the GHA.

    “The collection of road and bridge tolls were carried out by the GHA using workers engaged in six months renewable contracts. In some instances, the GHA use private entities in the engagement of some of the contract workers to carry out the collection of tolls on behalf of the authority,” he said.

    Source: ghanaweb.com