FG Concludes Plan To Reintroduce Toll Gates Nationwide

The Federal Government said it has concluded plans to reintroduce toll gates on various highways across the country.

Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, made this known on Thursday while speaking at an interactive session with the senate committee on the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA).

Fashola said the toll gates would be reintroduced in 38 locations across the roads.

The minister said road users would be able to pay for toll through their phones, adding that the money realised would be used for the maintenance of the roads.

He said the toll gates would be brought back as soon as the ongoing construction of highways is completed, noting that the federal government would not ask road users “to pay toll on a road that is not good.”

“We have concluded plans to reintroduce tollgates across the country,” Fashola said.

“It will be managed by the private sector and it will be located in the old places. Thirty-eight points across the country.

“We are only waiting for the completion of those roads before we introduce the toll gates.

“While the construction (of gates) is going on, we are working on the design. We want to standardise the design so that people 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 the materials we have prescribed. 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.

“The last part we are working on is the software that drives the management, audit, and payment of toll fares.”