The Governor of Delta State, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, has urged Nigerians to accept the reality of time, stressing that there was need for the Federal Government to reintroduced toll gates on major federal roads across the country.
Okowa noted that the Federal Government was overwhelmed at the rate of bad roads across the country and given the limited resources at her disposal, the federal government would not be able to address the poor state of roads across the country.
The Governor called for the reintroduction of toll gates while addressing journalists at the state’s capital, Asaba.
He said “I believe that Nigerians should learn to live in the truth. I believe that the federal government is becoming overwhelmed and even those of us at the states are overwhelmed with the rate at which our roads are beginning to fail.”
“Secondly, the economy is going down, thirdly, there are other competing needs, so I believe too that it is necessary to provide toll gates in major roads where people pay minimally, but should it be run as it was done in the past by agents of the federal government and the state governments? I do not think so.
“I believe that the way out is to find a way to concession some of these roads to private individuals and the money collected on such roads should be entered into agreement where those roads are ploughed back into continuing maintenance of those roads. “
“That is the way out. I believe that if you are paying a little in going across the road, it is better than when you have to use your vehicles on very bad roads and you have damages on your car and cost of maintaining the car is definitely higher than whatever you are going to pay.
“Even if the take home is not for the maintenance of the car, because you are going to slow down, you are burning more fuel and there are many issues; time that is lost could be used for other things. If you look at what it will take the individual, going on a long bad road, it is far cheaper to pay for that toll than not to pay for the toll and spend a lot of money on your car and on fuel.”
The Governor however, noted that he believed the fear of Nigerians was that the reintroduction of toll gates would be to just generate revenue without commensurate results as regards road infrastructures.
”It is good for Nigerians to begin to look at things holistically, but the thing is, people fear is that they are going to resort to the past where the toll gates are just means of making money. They fear that if they want to concession, they will concession it to the wrong people, who will make money and they will not maintain the roads.
“So there must be a way to work out the relationship and the agreement in such a manner that the tolling of the road is geared towards maintenance of the road and it should be given to people who are trusted. Companies that are trusted and measures put in place that if you fail to do it, you also suffer the consequences that go along with failure to meet up with the agreement. That will be good for the economy of the nation and good for the economy of the states.”
Discover more from EkoHotBlog
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
Advertise or Publish a Story on EkoHot Blog:
Kindly contact us at [email protected]. Breaking stories should be sent to the above email and substantiated with pictorial evidence.
Citizen journalists will receive a token as data incentive.
Call or Whatsapp: 0803 561 7233, 0703 414 5611