Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola yesterday said motorists will start paying toll on some federal highways as soon as reconstruction works are completed.
According to the former Lagos State Governor, yesterday’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting approved a memorandum his ministry presented to allow tolling on 5,050-kilometres of dual-carriage federal roads and bridges after all modalities have been finalised.
There are about 200,000-kilometres of roads across the country of which 35,000-kilometres (about 14 per cent) belong to the Federal Government.
Fashola who told reporters at Aso Villa after the FEC meeting that vehicles will pay between N200 and N500 depending on how they are classified added that the toll collection will be automated to guarantee transparency.
He explained that funds generated from the toll plazas will be used to maintain the roads and to construct new ones.
He added that wide consultations were made before arriving at the decision.
The minister argued that unless there is an alternative source of funding, the government will not be able to maintain its roads.
In 2003, the Olusegun Obasanjo administration removed toll plazas and ended tolling on major highways due to lack of transparency.
Likely major federal dual carriage ways, roads and bridges to be tolled include; Lagos-Ibadan Expressway; Onitsha-Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway and Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Highway.
Others are: Shagamu – Benin – Asaba: Four lane, dual carriageway (100kmh); Keffi – Akwanga; Okene-Lokoja-Abuja and Onitsha – Owerri.
Fashola said: “The big step to actual tolling was taken today by presenting for approval the broad policy that will guide the tolling so that local people, states, local governments, all those who manage roads, investors who want to come in, will know what our tolling policy is. And that will form the basis of their financial modelling, their investment decision.
“First of all, toll will not start until roads are motorable. So, let’s be clear about this. There will be agreements that have to be placed, negotiated with government through the Ministry of Works and the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission. Some of the highlights are that we will adopt an open tolling policy as distinct from a closed tolling policy.
“The difference is that only open tolling policy, which is what we were used to before you pay toll at a barrier over a fixed or predetermined distance. The close toll systems means that you will pay tolls over the distance you travel and the size of your vehicle. We haven’t operated that before. So, we are going back to what we know. We also approve that consultations must be done. Willingness to pay surveys must be done before specific roads are tolled”, he explained.
He added that vehicles plying the tolled highways will pay between N200 and N500 per trip depending on the capacity of the vehicle.
“We need to have a kick off policy. So we’ve classified vehicles into five categories, the cars, the SUVs and the jeeps as a second category. Private buses and commercial buses as third and fourth categories. And then luxury buses and trucks as a fifth category.
“So, the start off tolls that we have for financial modelling and investment decision making, cars will pay N200, SUVs and Jeeps will pay N300, private buses will pay N300, commercial buses will pay N150, luxury buses and trucks will pay N500.
“Now I think it is important to share with you how we arrived at these prices. Some of these prices were recommended by the operators themselves that I said we met. Some of them were also obtained from a survey we did across the six geo-political zones, talking to households and talking to people in the garages, motor parks and all of that, which was quite extensive. We covered about 17 or so states or 22 states out of the national framework just to get a sampling of what people felt”, he explained.