Legon road tolls

Abraham Lincoln encourages those who profess to respect the rule of law thus, “do not interfere with anything in the constitution that must be maintained for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.”  It is in the light of this thinking that there is the need for all of us to exercise caution in the way we analyse the road toll instituted by the authorities of the University of Ghana to give meaning to the rule of law.

The university authorities gave sufficient notice to the public about the institution of the tolls. More importantly, the average Ghanaian must know that although a public university, it has been designated as a private property. And just as some members of the public are not allowed to take their vehicles through certain portions of the Flagstaff House and Parliament, although these are owned by all of us, so also not all members of the public are allowed free passage through certain portions of Legon. 

The University of Ghana Act, which was passed in 2010, enjoins the university to initiate income-generating activities and provides further that any asset acquired by the university will be a charge against the university, not the state or the government. Thus, without recourse to any specific section of the law, one may ask when Parliament ever debated and legislated upon the fees charged by the university or the cost of the forms sold to applicants seeking admission into the university.  Sometimes, we needlessly undermine initiatives that could promote cost-effectiveness in the management of public resources.

One may recollect that when Prof. Stephen Adei decided that there was the need to run the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) as a financially independent institution, there was outrage about the commercialisation of the institute. Today, many Ghanaians are proud of GIMPA which has expanded beyond Greenhill, with presence in Accra, Kumasi and Sekondi-Takoradi.

Prof. Adei, who was mauled for the initiative, did not take GIMPA away and now he is commended for his foresight for breathing life into an otherwise dying institution. 

When the Tetteh- Quarshie to Adenta road was under construction and it became imperative to divert traffic through the university, the authorities initially refused to allow the campus to be used as a thoroughfare. The government had to negotiate with the university, including the provision of streetlights. Equally, there are some portions of the roads on campus that have been closed to the public and nobody has questioned that.

That is why the government must be discreet in its dealings with the university authorities about the road tolls. It is very worrying for the Chief of Staff at the Presidency to have gone public on a government directive to Legon to stop collecting the road tolls when no official correspondence had been sent to the university. This is important because the government must not be seen to be interfering with the independence and authority of any public institution granted autonomy.

 What the government can do is to engage such bodies quietly when it feels that their policies and actions are having a negative impact on the public in order not to undermine their independence openly. 

The fact is that the same Constitution which defines the powers of the government prescribes the mandate of such independent bodies. If the authority of the government is not to be undermined by any other body or authority beyond that defined in the constitution, then the government, likewise, must not attempt to interfere with the powers and authority of any autonomous public body.  Indeed, it was not for nothing that the chancellorship of our public universities was removed from the President.

If one were to go by the argument made by some Ghanaians against the Trades Union Congress (TUC) about the increase in utility tariffs and sale of Merchant Bank, then one may want to ask where the government representatives on the council of the University of Ghana were when the decision to toll the roads was taken.

The other argument about the charges being too high ignores the fact that the toll is charged only on entry as against the tolls paid on highways where you pay either way.

The authorities of the university, perhaps, played into the hands of opponents of the tolls when the students who pay development levy were isolated from the university community. But as it is often said, better late than never, the student bodies stated their case and have gotten a hearing. Now that the students have been properly recognised, they must support the authorities in ensuring that their roads are better and properly maintained in the face of dwindling support from the Consolidated Fund.

The independence and autonomy of the university is in the best interest of students, democracy and Ghanaians as a whole.  We need to reduce, not increase the awesome powers of our governments and ensure that the exercise of authority is diffused.