A member of the Ghana RoadFund management board, Professor Mohammed Salifu said the RoadFund remains the only viable way of raising adequate resources for the crucial task of road maintenance, adding, a lot must be done to improve the revenue of the fund.
He stated this at a forum organized at Wa by the RoadFund Management Board in collaboration with the RoadFund secretariat for its stakeholders.
The objective of the forum is to coordinate and ensure total accountability of the Fund and also to encourage stakeholders to support revenue mobilization and vigilance as well as effective use of resources.
Prof. Mohammed Salifu said since the inception of the fund in 1985, it has chalked lots of successes with particular reference to the last decade were the Fund averagely bagged one hundred million US Dollars (US 100 $MILLION) from tolls and levies collected to undertake road maintenance in the country.
Despite the success chalked, the Ghana RoadFund management member said it is facing some challenges which include the unrestrained awards of contract by agencies outside approved budgets; poor project or contract management by agency staff which sometimes results in the fund not getting value for the money spent and seeming preference of expensive upgrading to the neglect of core maintenance activities.
He said the board is also challenged with the issue of significant number of motorists-40 per cent of them- converting from fuel to Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in to order evade the petroleum levy.
He added that about GHC250Million is required for adequate maintenance of roads every year but that has not been the case, citing 2010 where they had GHC182.24.
Prof. Salifu suggested that the sources of revenue for the fund should be diversified and called for the expansion of the fuel levy to cover LPG by vehicles.
He also suggested that a strong political leadership is required to enhance the fuel levy, stating that for starters it can be raised to equal of 9 cents/litres.
To ensure budget discipline by road agencies, he said the board has instructed that ‘‘no objection’’ approbation be obtained before any project is initiated outside the approved budget.
The Ghana RoadFund Management member affirmed the board’s unequivocal commitment to prudently manage the fund to ensure its sustainability and that Ghanaians and motorists get value for the monies spent out of the Fund.
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