Tag Archives: Toll Gates

NLC slams Senate for re-introducing toll gates

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The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Thursday in Abuja berated the Senate over its approval for the re-introduction of toll gates across the country.

The NLC General Secretary, Dr Peter Ozo-Eson, while reacting to the development, said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that Nigeria’s policy making processes needed to be interrogated.

NAN recalls that the Senate had on Tuesday passed a motion seeking to resuscitate the collection of tolls on federal highways across the country.

The Upper House argued that toll collection from motorists was the only way to construct and maintain roads and enhance their efficiency.

However, Ozo-Eson, in his reaction said:“We used to have toll gates and we started them under pressure from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, among others.

“We built a number of toll gates and the government itself came and tore down those structures.

“To come back again to re-introduce the toll gates means another waste of public resources and this shows that something is fundamentally wrong.

According to him, the first experience became an avenue for rewarding favoured cronies, who were given the franchise to collect the tolls.

He also noted that the nation never benefitted from the first experience as some set of people fed fat on the tolls and the roads were never maintained.

“Unless we are able to put in place a mechanism that will ensure that the revenues from the tolls are used for the development and maintenance of the roads, any attempt to bring the toll gates will again be a failure.”

RTEAN Partners FG On Introduction Of Toll Gate

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The Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) has said it is unfortunate that despite contributing over 90 per cent of movement of goods and passengers in the country, road transport sector remains unregulated.
Speaking during a courtesy visit to the ministry of transport in Abuja, RTEAN president, Alhaji Musa Shehu Isiwele said the association will partner with the federal government on its plans to introduce toll gates across the country.
He said the association is concerned about how to achieve effective and efficient road transport system in country.
Isiwele said that RTEAN has already in collaboration with the federal ministry of works established modern workshops in each state of the federation, including FCT Abuja.
He revealed that the association has established drivers’ academies in each geo-political zones of the federation, to train our drivers, on a continuous basis to improve the capability of the Nigerian drivers with a view to encouraging greater sanity on our roads, as statistics have shown that human errors account for 93 per cent of road accidents in Nigeria.

 

He said, “the whole idea behind the projects as mentioned above is to economically empower our members to serve Nigerians better and to create jobs for our teaming Nigerian youths in addition to creating opportunities for skills acquisition for them.

 

 

Credit : Today

FG To Re-Introduce Toll At Federal Roads – Fashola

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Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola has hinted that the Federal government will be re-introducing tolls at Federal roads in Nigeria. Fashola says the money generated from the tolls will be used for the maintenance of the roads. He said this during his first news conference tagged ‘Setting the Agenda for Delivering Change’ in Abuja today December 8th…

“Maintenance would be our watchword. We are setting up a robust maintenance regime to keep our highways in good shape. This shows that tolling is necessary to support government funding. So, it will not be too much if we ask every road user to pay little to augment government funding for road maintence. It is eminent commonsense for us to find that money. We will use technology; so if we don’t pay cash, you will pay by tokens or tickets and the money is accountable and it will go to the right place. We will manage that fund properly and we will hold those who we put there to account.” he said

Return Toll Gates, Senate Urges Buhari

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The Senate has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately reverse the toll gate policy by ensuring that every federal road has a toll gate.

The Obasanjo administration had scrapped toll gates across the country.

However, the Senate? adopted the recommendation on the reversal of the toll gate policy contained in the report of the Ad-hoc Committee on Works, which investigated the total collapse of federal roads in Nigeria.

The Senate also mandated its Committee on Works to meet with the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission to look for new methods of funding federal road projects.

In his presentation, the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Barnabas Gemade, recommended the rebuilding and constant maintenance of existing road infrastructure as well as introduction of weigh bridges to protect roads.

Credit: ChannelsTV