The National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has slammed the government for borrowing GH¢150 million to fix potholes in the country after scrapping road tolls in 2022.
According to him, the government’s decision to abolish road tolls was a reckless and irresponsible move that deprived the country of a reliable source of revenue for road maintenance.
He made these comments after the government through the Ministry of Roads and Highways on February 15, announced that it had secured funding worth GH¢150 million to fix potholes in the country.
Speaking in an interview with Kwesi Pratt Jnr, the national chairman, popularly referred to as General Mosquito, noted that the government is responsible for creating the problem of potholes by allowing heavy trucks to use the roads without paying tolls.
“I saw in the news that the government has made available GH¢150 million for the patching of potholes. How were the potholes created in the first place?
“When you look at these things and the fact that we had a system of generating revenue to fix these potholes, but we decided to abandon that and now we are going to borrow to come and fix the potholes on the roads?” he questioned.
He explained that the potholes and the maintenance of the roads in the country were being funded through road tolls, which the government said had outlived their usefulness and for such reason, it scraped it.
“These potholes and the maintenance of our roads were being funded through road tolls. The same government that said the road tolls have outlived their usefulness, opened our roads for all these heavy trucks to ply them. Some of the trucks are transcontinental, coming from the Sahel region.
“The size of their articulated trucks is bigger than ours here, and they all pass through for free and do not contribute anything towards the maintenance of our roads. Now, you have to go and borrow GH¢150 million to come and fix potholes.
“… Even though people are claiming the country is broke, it is not all the citizens in the country that is broke,” he added.
