GHANAIANS REACTION TO THE REINTRODUCTION OF ROAD TOLLS AND THE EXISTENCE OF E-LEVY.

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By Amponsah Kwaku Yeboah - 26th May 2023 

Some Ghanaians are worried about the proposed increment of fees for road tolls as they  

lament over the reintroduction of road tolls amidst the e-levy taxation by government of 

Ghana through the finance ministry.  However, the idea is to enable the government to 

generate enough revenue domestically.
        

Some road toll collection points in Ghana (Accra-Kasoa road)

The collection of road tolls was one of the revenue generation plans in the 2023 budget that finance 

minister Ken Ofori-Atta submitted to parliament in November 2022. Meanwhile, payment of tolls was 

ceased in November 2021 by the minister of roads and highways, Kwasi Amoako-Atta. He said, the 37 

toll booths across the country give only GHs 78 million to the government, and these toll booths also 

cause traffic congestion. The targeted revenue from the road toll is GHs 2.4 billion annually. Due to 

this, there are proposed increments in the fees charged for various vehicles.

                                                                       Traffic congestion at the Kasoa toll booth when fees collection is not operational.

An electronic levy popularly called "E-levy" was introduced by the Ministry of Finance to tax the users 

of mobile money transactions and other electronic money transfers. After the implementation of e-levy 

which took effect from May 1, 2022, the government assured Ghanaians that, e-lavy has come to 

replace the road tolls and will do very well in revenue generation. 

Some Ghanaians including minority MPs have reacted to the decision made by the government. Some 

Ghanaians are asking the government to scrap the E-levy since the road toll is coming back. The 

government should reemploy workers who lost their job due to the closure of toll booths in November 

2021. Because a higher percentage of people working at the various toll booth facilities across the 

country are people with disability, therefore the reintroduction of road tolls may serve as employment 

for them to make their lives better. Some are also of the view that the government needs a significant 

amount of money to maintain the damaged toll booth facilities before work can begin. 




Some damaged toll booths on the Accra-Kasoa road that need renovation 


Others say the government should make provision for the road toll to be paid electronically to avoid 

embezzlement of funds by the collectors, this means that government needs additional money to set up 

electronic machinery to collect the road tolls digitally which will be far better than the manual payment 

process.

However, some Ghanaians say the government's decision on road toll collection is not a fair one 

because about 90% of the toll booths (money collection points) are situated on deplorable roads, 

whereas an area like Cantonment where most of the people living there are rich and enjoy good roads 

do not have a single toll booth. For this reason, the road users who pay road tolls feel cheated and are 

therefore calling for the government to revise this decision. However, some Ghanaians share their 

thoughts about this decision by government.
 


 Report by Amponsah Kwaku Yeboah



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