Editorial (the Daily Searchlight of 16/05/2022)
The Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana (UG) has urged government to reintroduce the road toll system as part of its fiscal consolidation measures.
It said the tollbooths should be re-instated with an efficient electronic-pass system to address congestion in some parts of the country’s roads.
Professor Quartey was making a presentation at the 2022 edition of the ISSER Roadshow on the State of the Ghanaian Economy Report (SGER) 2020 and Ghana’s Social Development Outlook (GSDO), held in collaboration with the University of Education, Winneba.
It was held on the theme: Harnessing Stakeholder Engagement and Feedback for Research Impact and it provided a platform to discuss the successes and challenges of Ghana’s economy and ways to boost the economy through a nonpartisan lens.
Indeed, this is a call that the Daily Searchlight supports with great fervor. We believe that in the first place, shutting down the toll booths was a total act of irresponsibility, and should not have been done in the first place.
Given Ghana’s great financial constraints, we believe that any decision to do away with a measure that accrues revenue to government, should be done only after maximum consideration.
Again we believe that the road tolls were done as a matter of lawful provision by parliament. Therefore, it should have been only parliament that had the requisite wherewithal to do away with the tax. As it is, the removal of the tax, when parliament had not so approved, has lawful implications.
We call on government to seriously consider the suggestion by ISSER, and bring back the tolls as soon as possible, to add to Ghana’s revenue measures.
(This article was first published in the column EDITORIAL of the Daily Searchlight of 16/05/2022. The Daily Searchlight appears on the newsstands of Ghana every working day and for sale online twenty-four hours a day all day throughout the world on www.ghananewsstand.com).
