Road Fund has debt of GH₵ 290.17 million

The Ghana Road Fund said to be in debt of GH₵ 290.17 million in spite of some significant gains made within the last 12 years.

This figure includes a loan amount of GH₵ 84.107 million contracted from SSNIT which is yet to be settled, and other monies owed to road contractors for work done over the years.

The Fund was able to realize a total amount of GH₵ 264.06 million from its various revenue sources in the year 2012. This relative significant adjustment has been attributed to the increases in road and bridge tolls, vehicle registration fees, and road user fees among others.

Managers of the Fund have targeted to collect an amount of GH₵303.67 million as revenue for this year, 2013, to enable it to meet part of the road maintenance budget of the Agencies which subsist on the Fund to undertake their maintenance programmes and activities.

One major concern that has however been expressed is that, the current capacity of the Fund is estimated to meet only about 60% of the road maintenance needs of the country.

This was revealed at a ‘Public Forum’ organized by the Ghana Road Fund Board in attendance by some members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Roads, in Kumasi, to deliberate on financing road maintenance in the country.

The Deputy Minister of Roads and Highways maintains that, as a result of the inability of the Fund to fully cover the road maintenance needs of the country, the 40% financing deficit would mean a continuous increase in the payments certificate for work done by road contractors and the road maintenance requirements of Assemblies.

This further implies that, about 40% of road networks would be left unattended to in the year for which the cumulative effect over a period of time is projected to be very high.

It is against this background that the government is said to be considering recommendations by the Roads and Highways Ministry to make the Fund more responsive to road maintenance needs.

In addition to this, government’s initiative of exploring other financial methods such as the long term pre-financing to carry out road maintenance was said to be on cause.

The government, among other ‘explore-able’ options of funding is said to be seriously considering some concepts of Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangements revealed as the Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) and Maintain, Operate and Transfer (MOT).

The Fund, beginning from 2000 to 2010 accrued total revenue of about GH₵ 1.474 billion according to the Deputy Minister for Roads and Highways, Isaac Adjei Mensah.

In the year 2000, the Fund was indicated to have made an impressive gain recording GH₵ 28.4 million, and GH₵ 35.8 million in 2001 as revenue. These upward adjustments are noted to have consistently continued to 2012. 

The Deputy Minister urged the Board to discuss and submit proposal to generate more revenue into the Road Fund, and asked for the consideration of a levy to be placed on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) which is currently being heavily used as fuel for road transportation.

Samuel Yaw Edusei, the Deputy Ashanti Regional Minister alluded to the need to identify and come out with strategies to solve to the challenges confronting the overall success of the Fund notwithstanding the huge improvement that has been recorded in country’s road networks.

He was therefore optimistic that, the opinions expressed at the Forum would go a long way to help draw up a sustainable approach to financing road maintenance as a means of working towards the realization of the objectives for which the Fund was instituted.