Majority Leader in Parliament Osei Kyei Mensah Bosnu has reacted to calls from hawkers who sell on stretches with toll booths on government not to abolish the toll collection.
According to them since government’s directive for toll collection to be stopped they have been rendered jobless as they find nowhere to sell their goods that serves as a source of daily income.
But the Minister for Parliamentary affairs reacting to complaints by hawkers said it doesn’t make sense if hawkers and toll booth workers claim they have been rendered jobless.
Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu who was seaking on Accra-based Okay FM said there was the need for government to call off the toll collection because it wasn’t fetching government enough revenue.
”Everyday where we take tolls is part of the road that gets spoilt. As I said the whole year we get about GHS78 million to maintain that spot. So what do we make from the tolls we collect? nothing.
”Apart from maintenance, we contract people to clean the place and these people clean it two to three times daily. If you don’t do that visitors will see Ghana as a dirty country. What the traders are saying that the government has rendered them jobless, the truth is that tollbooths are not constructed to serve as market centers. So if they say the tollbooths are not there anymore so it has rendered them jobless it doesn’t make sense”, he stated.
”I wouldn’t say what they are doing is not good because I agree that times are difficult in the country so if someone is doing something to put body and soul together that’s fine but tollbooths are not the only place they can sell. The tollbooths were not purpose for market centers”.
