Former toll workers are urging the Akufo-Addo government to immediately reinstate tolls on our roads and get them back to work.
The government, in November 2021 announced the seizure of road tolls across all roads and bridges in the country.
The move by government saw over 800 toll workers being sent home with the government promising to reassign the workers and get them paid.
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta during the presentation of the Mid-Year Budget Review in Parliament on Monday, July 25, 2022, announced that the government is reintroducing tolls on selected highways starting with the Accra–Tema Motorway after a planned expansion work is completed.
But the Leader of the Ghana Toll Workers group, Henry Dogbey in an interview with Bonohene Baffuor Awuah, host of Ghana Kasa on Kasapa FM/Agoo TV, said the workers are hugely disappointed in the government for not finding them jobs as it promised, seven months after laying them off.
He said tolling the Accra-Tema motorway alone in the near future will be woefully inadequate to employ 800 workers.
“Those of us toll workers who were asked to go home are about 800 in number. Tema motorway has just two toll stations and it’s not possible for all of us to be employed there. You’ve asked over 800 people to go home unemployed, and life is very tough for us, especially in this difficult economic situation facing the country.
“We the toll workers were expecting to hear during the Mid-year Budget Review that tolls have been reinstated on our roads and we’ve been called back to work. Or we’ve been reassigned to where the government promised to take us and our seven months allowance paid us. Since there was no such good news for us, we are hugely disappointed in the government. Is the government saying that we’ll continue staying at home jobless until the Tema Motorway expansion project is completed where just a handful of us can be employed,” Henry Dogbey asked?
Source: Kasapafmonline.com