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Television host Kwaku Sintim-Misa, commonly known as KSM, has asked the government to publicly admit their mistakes by informing Ghanaians that the decision to abolish road tolls was mistaken.
In November 2021, the government abolished road tolls as one of the policy changes outlined in the 2022 Budget.
However, following a parliamentary debate, the 2023 budget was just enacted and the reintroduction was announced by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta.
The new development has prompted a response from KSM, who claimed that it makes the government appear foolish and disjointed.
In an interview with GhanaWeb, KSM added that the reason the government is reintroducing road tolls should be adequately explained.
“Are you bringing it back because you made a mistake canceling it in the first place? So just address Ghanaian people and tell us, ‘Listen, Ghanaian people, it was an error canceling this thing, we made a mistake and are trying to reverse it. We’re going to bring it back and when we bring it back we are going to make it more digital, we are going to do this, we are going to do that, to improve it,” KSM said.
KSM further lambasted the government for initially canceling the road tolls. “To cancel paying road tolls in Ghana, I thought it was very unfortunate, especially if you’re going to use the road tolls to actually help improve the state of roads, then you need to collect road tolls even if Ghanaians will not understand the importance of road tolls. This is where you can come out and state clearly that we need to improve our road tolls. We need a road coming from Accra to Kumasi, these things don’t just happen,” he said.
“They come from the tolls that we pay. Even if they thought that road tolls were not as effective and it was not collecting as much, then we need to sit down and actually come up with a strategy of how best we can get the road tolls to work. Because there is no question in my mind that they (road tolls) are needed, especially in a country that is economically harder with raising revenue,” KSM emphasized.
NKONKONSA.com
