SOCIAL STORIES

Tema Motorway… TOLL BOOTHS MAKE GH₵36,000 DAILY

 *But its state is deplorable

Painstaking investigations conducted byToday has revealed that the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) makes a whopping GH₵36,000 daily at the toll booths on the Accra-Tema Motorway but persistently fail to rehabilitate the deplorable nature of the motorway.

Even though officials at the Ghana Road Fund (GRF,) Ministry of Roads and Highways, GHA and Angel Data and Telecom Services (AD&TS) were tight-lipped on how much the tollbooths rake in as revenue daily, Today discovered that each toll booth on the Motorway rakes in GH₵ 3,000 a day.

And by simple calculation the 12 toll booths on the Tema-Motorway and Ashaiman-Accra road makes 36,000.00 a day.

The road tolls was to see to the periodic and routine maintenance of the roads, which include rehabilitation, upgrading, road safety activities and other road projects to be carried out by the GHA, Department of Feeder Roads and Roads Safety Commission.

The money, which is being managed by the road fund, appears not to be used in rehabilitating many of the deplorable roads in the country which the Tema-Motorway is no exception.

Today can report that this can be attributed to the fact that some toll booth collectors, engaged by the government to collect tolls from the country’s tolled roads and bridges, have been sitting on the cash.

There are a countless number of potholes that can be found on the motorway.

And this has been the result of many of the accidents that have occurred on the highways.

Some of the potholes on the motorway today can be described as negligence on the part of those responsible for its maintenance.

But, the tolled highway has had hikes in the rates over recent years and yet no form of repairs in more than a decade.

Today discovered that most of the bridges on the motorway are in bad shape thereby exposing motorists and pedestrians to danger.

Set against the fact that government is raking an estimated GH₵30 million from tolls and another GH₵20 million in vehicle user fees annually since the February 2010 increases in road tolls, taxes, levies, the state of the motorway today raises more questions than answers.

Today can also state that the automation of the Accra-Tema Motorway toll booths with the view to reducing revenue leakage and raking in significant income for development however, failed to reduce vehicular congestion on the Accra-Tema Motorway, as there is always a long queue of vehicles.

The automation machine, which was fixed by AD&TS has accounting software that takes stock of every vehicle that plies the route.

The new system is also intended to plug any loophole and remove avenues for corruption in the manual collection of tolls.

Today’s recent report concerning streetlights on the motorway has still not been addressed, the question that is being asked is whether the means to see to the situation is not available or, “a blind eye has been turned to it.”