Toll gates are returning, FG tells Nigerians

The federal government has declared that it had complete plans to re-introduce tolls on major highways across the country.

Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), while showing before the Senate Committee on Federal Roads Maintenance Agency on Thursday, said thirty eight points had been identified within the first phase of the re-introduction.

“Clearly, tolling is returning,” the minister told the lawmakers.

While saying that the new toll gates would be located at the old spots, Fashola stated that tolls would be collected after the roads had been made motorable.

He said, “We aren’t going to ask road users to pay toll on a road that’s not good. whereas the construction (of gates) goes on, we are working on the design. we want to standardise the design so that individuals when we ask people to come and bid for the construction, we are able to control what they’re going to construct. they’re going to construct the materials we’ve got prescribed. we can also control the price so that nobody is bidding with criticize prices; there’ll be the floor and the ceiling. Your price can vary according to how many plazas you build and not because you claim to have used ‘foreign’ materials.

“The last part we are working on is the software system that drives the management, audit, and payment of toll fares. we want to use the development that has taken place between when the old toll plazas were demolished and now. there were no GSM and payment platforms as of that time as we have cellphones and cards now. we want to make it very simple for people to go to kiosks and buy toll cards and pay tolls.”

Details shortly.