Federal Government To Re-IntroduceToll Plazas (Toll Gate) To Highways Next Year

Seven years after they were abrogated, toll plazas are on their way back to the nation’s highways.

The Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolememen, who made this disclosure Thursday, said the Federal Government would re-introduce the tolling policy as from next year. The minister, at an interactive session with members of the Senate Committee on Works, said the introduction of the toll plazas was necessary to garner funds for the regular rehabilitation of the nation’s highways.

The minister pointed out that the decision to abrogate toll plazas across the country by the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2004 was a disservice to road maintenance, saying: “This has completely robbed the road sector of the critical income that should have been used to rehabilitate the roads.” He said the Federal Government could not handle road construction alone, adding: “We will create enabling environment for the private sector to be involved in road development in the country.”

Onolememen told the Senator Ayogu Eze-led committee that government was considering the possibility of establishing a national road authority and a road fund, saying road construction and rehabilitation should be driven just like any other private business. He said: “We need to have a legal framework that will enable us to pull resources together to service the national road fund. “The future of the road sector cannot be shouldered by the Federal Government alone. We will soon start work on some of these roads. By 2012, we will introduce toll gate policy in order to rehabilitate our roads. Beyond this, we need a major reform of the sector.

“We need an enabling framework for the collation of all fines collected on the roads so that it can be channelled to road maintenance. We are going to raise a bill to introduce a policy that would gradually lead to the rehabilitation of our roads because it is one of the ways we can guarantee sustainable development of our road network.”

On the poor condition of federal roads, the minister said: “We have selected a number of roads that need immediate attention. They are: Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, Shagamu-Ore, Onitsha-Enugu, Abuja-Kaduna-Kano-Maiduguri, Abuja-Abaji-Lokoja and Sokoto Expressway.”

Onolememen, who also spoke on the second Niger Bridge, assured the Senate that the project “is work in progress,” saying: “We are currently collaborating with the Ministry of Finance and the World Bank which is already offering to fund the preliminary work on the project to the tune of $4 million.”

He also said the works ministry had included part of its counterpart funding in the 2012 budget estimates. The minister added that the second Niger Bridge would be delivered before the end of this administration. 

Earlier in his opening remarks, the committee chairman, Eze deplored the poor state of the nation’s roads and said that the National Assembly would compel the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency on our roads.