The vice president, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has come under fire from the Toll Workers Association of Ghana for his suggestion to reinstate road tolls in an attempt to win their support.
Ghana removed road tolls in 2022 in an effort to reduce traffic on its main thoroughfares. The Vice President, who is also the New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer, suggested a broader reinstatement of the tolling system during a tour to the Volta Region in order to raise the funds required for infrastructural development.
At a meeting with the clergy in the Volta Region at the beginning of his tour, Dr. Bawumia addressed citizen concerns about the state of the roads. He said that the government did not have the money for infrastructure development and that creative solutions, like road tolling, could be an answer.
Dr. Bawumia further proposed that the private sector may augment road toll revenue to provide the necessary relief, and that the government’s approach to funding roads should be reevaluated.
However, Edward Duncan, the general secretary of the Toll Workers Association of Ghana, stated during a Friday interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Eyewitness News on Citi FM:
…This thing that his excellency is telling us is just to get votes from us and our loved ones and sympathisers because we are about 800 workers, former toll booth workers.
“We have families, we have friends. We have people that we can influence, we have people that depend on us.
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