Before eliminating road tolls, you should have thought of other options, says PwC to the government.

Listen to this article

Before eliminating the road toll, the government should have thought of a different strategy, according to accounting and auditing firm PwC.

It claimed in its opinion on the 2022 Mid-Year Budget Review that a different strategy should have been taken into account to address problems including the lack of accountability at the toll booths.

In order for the road infrastructure created under the Public Private Partnership (“PPP”) framework to be paid for in full or in part through user fees, it consequently recommended automated toll booths/tolling as an alternative.

“While we recognized the factors that led to the government’s decision to end tolls on Ghanaian roads, such as the lack of oversight over the tolls collected, the busy manual toll booths, the associated loss of manpower, and the negative effects on the environment, we believed that a different strategy to address these issues should have been taken into account.”

It continued by saying that in its opinion, the resumption of tolling as a way to pay for economic infrastructure is justified.

The document concluded, “And if properly implemented will aid with the building of infrastructure at a speedier pace while being more inexpensive to government.”

The government stated in the Mid-Year Budget Review that the Tema Motorway renovation, which will be done through a PPP agreement, will be financially self-sufficient once it is finished.

The elimination of the road toll has cost the government money that could have gone toward repairing dangerous roads.