While Ghana’s economy continues to suffer from the debilitating effects of COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine coupled with what many describe as mismanagement of the economy, an Economist, Dominic Anarigide has advised government to reinstate the collection of road tolls to help cushion the distressed economy and help in stabilising the Ghanaian Cedi.
According to Mr. Anarigide, the cessation of the collection road tolls has dealt a major blow to the government’s internal revenue mobilisation; a situation, he says, contributes to the woes in the economy.
Mr. Anarigede believes the government has gotten the opportunity to reintroduce the collections of roads as Finance Minister Ken Offori Atta is set to present the Mid-year budget review this Monday.
He said based on the current state of the economy, “I will suggest that in this mid-year budget review, we should consider bringing back the tolls because it is low-hanging fruits that we are just throwing away and we are going to beg.”
“They are throwing some amount of money away in the name of pride or whatever it is, I can just tell and then we are going to borrow money. So I think that the tolls have to be brought back. Loot at some of these heavy vehicles that ply our roads to Burkina Faso and other neighbouring countries and they go free without paying any tolls I think that is not fine,” he stressed.
Unlike what he describes as the ‘burdensome E-Levy’, he noted that Ghanaians will choose the road tolls over the former and therefore the need to bring it back.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1 MHz|Kennedy Zongbil|Bolgatanga|Ghana
