The minister of works and housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola yesterday announced the reintroduction of toll gates on some dual carriageways across the country 18 years after they (toll gates) were demolished.
Addressing journalists after the weekly federal executive council meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Fashola said his ministry presented a memo which the council approved to reintroduce toll plazas on dual carriageways of the 35,000km federal roads.
He said the roads amounted to only 14.3 per cent of the entire 35,000km stretch of federal roads that were dual carriageways and would be eligible for tolling with vehicles paying between N200 and N500 toll per trip.
The minister also said diplomatic, military, para-military vehicles, tricycles and motorcycles would be exempted from the toll regime.
He added that dual carriageways represented only 5,050km out of the total 35,000km.
“So the total network of roads today, assuming we wanted to start today, which we’re not, that will be eligible for tolling on the federal network will be 14.3 per cent of the total network. So, 85.27 per cent will not be eligible for tolling.
“We have seen that most of those dual carriageways also have alternative roads, but they are single carriageways; that’s why we left them. So, the only exception to single carriageway are some bridges and they are listed in the regulation.”
The minister said with the FEC approval, the ministry was would be working on the modalities to determine take off time of the tolling system.
“The ministry of works and housing presented a policy memorandum for the approval of federal roads, bridges, tolling policy, and also a regulation that will provide a legal framework for the tolling policy.
“So, we have taken another step. So let me be clear, tolls are not going to start tomorrow. So let us be clear about that,” he added.
He said the open tolling system to be introduced would not start until the affected roads were motorable while operational agreements would have to be negotiated with the relevant government agencies.
The minister also said the toll collected would not only be used to maintain the roads but also to construct new ones.
Besides, he said the tolling would done electronically adding that the federal government consulted widely with public and private sector stakeholders before agreeing to reintroduce toll on federal highways.
It would be recalled that the toll points were dismantled by the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003.
