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FG set to re-introduce toll gates – Fashola

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-Federal government reveals plans to re-introduce toll gates on major Nigerian roads.

-The toll gates would be introduced after reconstruction of bad roads and would be managed by private organizations.

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FG to bring back toll gates on Nigerian roads.

Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has disclosed plans by the federal government to re-introduce tolls on major highways across the country.

Fashola made the disclosure during an interactive session with the Senate Commitee on Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) on Thursday.

He noted that 38 points which will be used for the first phase of the re-introduction have already been identified.

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Fashola, was however quick to point out that the toll gates would only be introduced after the roads have been repaired.

“Clearly, tolling is coming,” Fashola said.

“We are not going to ask road users to pay toll on a road that is not good. While the construction (of gates) is going on, we are working on the design. We want to standardise the design so that when we ask people to come and bid for the construction, we can control what they are going to construct. They are going to construct with the materials we have prescribed.

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“We can also control the price so that nobody is bidding with disparage prices; there will be the floor and the ceiling. Your price will vary according to how many plazas you build and not because you claim to have used ‘foreign’ materials.

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“The last part we are working on is the software that drives the management, audit and payment of toll. We want to use the development that has taken place between when the old toll plazas were dismantled and now. There were no GSM and payment platforms as of that time as we have cell phones and cards now. We want to make it very easy for people to go to kiosks and buy toll cards and pay tolls.

“It will also be easy to audit from any of our offices. We will be able to see what is going on, how many people passed, how many vehicles, and we can settle payments to operators in a very transparent and accountable way.”

Reacting to claims by members of the committee that only N800m had been released to FERMA out of the N25bn voted to the agency in the 2017 budget, Fashola disclosed budgetary releases to the agency was suspended as they did not have a board for some time.