Inactive tollbooths pose safety threats

Tollbooths, roadside structures where drivers or road users pay to use bridges or roads, are deployed the world over as a means to raise revenue.

In fact, tolling has been established to be an essential tool to develop road infrastructure, especially in developing countries where resources are limited.

In Ghana,annual proceeds from toll collection amounted to about GH¢68 million on the average, while monthly proceeds hovered between GH¢5 million and GH¢6 million.

Proceeds from all the 38 tollbooths across the country were lodged in the Ghana Road Fund (GRF), ostensibly to support the government’s efforts to maintain and expand the road network of approximately 40,186 kilometres.

However, the Ministry of Roads and Highways, which was responsible for toll collection in the country, directed the cessation of the collection of tolls at all locations around the country, effective 12 a.m. on November 18, last year.

The directive followed the presentation of the 2022 Budget to Parliament by the Finance Minister, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, on November 17, 2021, in which he announced that the government had to abolish road tolls.

Following the cessation of toll collection, the Ministry of Roads and Highways has been advised to demolish all the 38 structures to prevent accidents and optimise road safety.

The National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) and the Ghana Consulting Engineers Association have separately called on the ministry to remove the tollbooths, once it has no use for them.

According to the NRSA, the inactive tollbooth structures in the carriageways had become an obstruction to motorists and a road safety threat to commuters.

In a letter to the Ghana Highway Authority, it said with the cessation of road toll collection, motorists did not break their speed in the vicinity of the tollbooths, and in the event of any mechanical failure or reckless driver decisions in and around those inactive tollbooths, the likelihood of a collision into them and the associated risk of road traffic casualties were high.

Given the potential threat to road traffic crashes, injuries and deaths posed by these obstructions and the responsibility imposed on the authority by Act 993 to reduce road traffic crashes, injuries and deaths, we applaud the NRSA for sounding the alarm of an imminent threat to the government and the relevant agencies.

Adding his voice to the call, the President of the Ghana Consulting Engineers Association, Mr Magnus Lincoln Quarshie, also warned that the presence of these structures posed safety and security threat to road users.

Already, transit trucks carting goods to our neighbouring landlocked countries have begun using these abandoned tollbooths as their parking lot, where they take rest by the roadside. Their presence is a nuisance and an obstruction to the free flow of traffic, especially at the Tema Motorway tollbooth.

Another good reason for the removal of the tollbooths is that they could become hideouts for highway robbers, especially along the Kumasi–Tamale highway, where robberies have been recorded in recent times.

The Daily Graphic is of the conviction that security and safety threats must be taken seriously to avert a future disaster and, therefore, agrees with the experts that infrastructure is provided for a purpose and must be discarded when there is no more use for it.

The point needs to be made that currently the physical structures sited in the middle of some of the major roads in the country have outlived their usefulness. They do not only pose a danger to road users and the public at large but are also an eyesore.

We urge the Ministry of Roads and Highways to take on board the opinions and advice of technical experts to ensure the safety and security of road users.