Bawumia’s road toll reintroduction plan a political gimmick – Toll workers

The Toll Workers Association of Ghana has criticized Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s proposal to reintroduce road tolls as a strategy to secure votes from them.

In 2022, Ghana eliminated road tolls to alleviate traffic congestion on major roads. During a tour of the Volta Region, the Vice President, who is also the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), proposed a broadened reintroduction of the tolling system to generate the necessary revenue for infrastructure development.

Addressing citizen concerns about the poor condition of roads at a meeting with the clergy in the Volta Region at the start of his tour, Dr. Bawumia stated that the Government lacked the funds for infrastructure development and suggested that innovative methods such as road tolling could provide a solution.

Dr. Bawumia further suggested that the Government’s approach to road funding should be reconsidered and that the private sector could supplement revenue from road tolls in providing the needed relief.

However, in an interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Eyewitness News on Citi FM on Friday, Edward Duncan, General Secretary of the Toll Workers Association of Ghana said “…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.”