By BARTHOLOMEW MADUKWE

LAGOS-Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolememen, Monday, explained the rationale behind Federal Government’s introduction of toll gates on the country’s major highways, noting that bad roads will be exempted from the exercise.

In a statement, yesterday, the minister said: “Government is sensitive to the feelings of the people, so in re-tooling the toll gate policy, we have decided that we are not going to toll a road that is so bad that there would be nothing to show for it. What we have decided is that as we would rehabilitate and reconstruct the roads, and only roads that qualify and passed through this process of full rehabilitation are going to start collecting tolls.

“The toll gates would not be re-introduced to any road that had not been rehabilitated and reconstructed to the level of it being qualified as fit and proper by global standards. Minimum standard for the toll gates would be similar to the toll plaza on the Lekki-Ikorodu road in Lagos built by the Lekki Concessionary Company, LCC.

“The toll plazas we are planning now are not going to be run on the basis of business as usual, we would have automated plazas. They will be monitored and we would ensure that it is not just driving to a toll plaza and paying cash. You can get appropriate tickets or cards in advance from any of the designated banks before you ply these roads. With your tickets or sticker you can go without delay”, he explained noting that this would ensure accountability and transparency in the management of the toll plazas.

He said the reason for the re-introduction of toll gates is to bring to stoppage the degeneration of roads to the state of disrepair, saying: “And in so doing, we should be able to sustain the all-year maintenance of these roads. The ministry is working on a policy which will eventually be forwarded to the National Assembly for legislative action. Again, we seem to be the only country in the world where you don’t have appropriate institutional framework to pull funds together and manage our roads.”

Onolememen noted that the implication of non-service charge payment on road usage is the major cause of bad roads presently in all parts of the country, adding that money at the disposal of government cannot guarantee sustainable maintenance of the roads, hence the need for a pragmatic and realistic measure.

The minister averred that the abrogation of the toll gates was a wrong government policy, stressing that the absence of toll gates on the country’s major highways have contributed to the poor funding and subsequent lack of maintenance of roads aside the added advantage of toll gates serving as checks on most criminal activities on major highways including escalated cases of armed robbery.