The odds favour the return of the tolling regime, the Federal Government believes. The reintroduction of toll plazas will assist the government in sourcing funds for roads repair and maintenance. But will this be the needed elixir be enough to generate the huge revenue make all federal roads smooth all-year-round? ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE asks in this report.
The stage is set for the Federal Government to reintroduce the tolling regime on federal highways. But motorists have nothing to fear as Power, Works & Housing Minister Babatunde Fashola assured that tolling will not return until all federal roads have been reappeared.
“We are only waiting for the completion of these roads before we introduce toll gates,” Fashola told the Senate when he appeared before the National Assembly last week.
To him, the extant laws still empowers the government to introduce tolls. And government will be tolling the roads in order to get the needed funds for their maintenance.
Despite the whopping N1.8 trillion spent of federal highways by the former Goodluck Jonathan’s administration before he left office in 2015, the roads (more than half of them) belonging to the federal government are bad.
An investigation carried out on the state of federal roads across the six geo-political zones by The Nation showed that less than 30 per cent of the road network across the country is passable. The worse hit region is the Southeast where no road was rehabilitated by the previous administration. The Federal Government claimed to have committed N345 billion to road repairs in the region.
Though official figures remained sketchy, experts claimed that road repairs gulped N4 trillion in the last 16 years. Successive administrations since Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, continued to commit the tax payers’ money to fix the roads with little or nothing to show for the various interventions.
Fruitless interventions
For instance, between 1996 and 1998, the Federal Government, through the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), spent about N500 billion to build and refurbish all the highways. In 2000, erstwhile Works Minister Chief Anthony Anenih sunk another N350 billion under an intervention programme tagged: “Operation 500 roads.” The programme was designed for the upgrade of 500 ‘critical’ federal roads across the country.
Two years after, the Federal Government came up with another intervention, which brought about the creation of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), to carry out an all-year-round maintenance on federal roads across the country.
Despite the frequency of such interventions, which has spanned two decades, more than 80 per cent of roads remain in deplorable condition.
Records showed that the Federal Government’s roads alone had gulped over 70 per cent of the nation’s total capital expenditures over the last 20 years.
Yet, only 34,123 of the 193, 200 kilometres of road networks nationwide belong to the federal. The states and local government areas account for 30,500 kilometres and 129,577 kilometres respectively.
The high costs of providing durable road network have placed the burden on government as sole financier of road infrastructure.
Since 1962, budgetary allocations to road architecture have been on the rise. The road sector got 19 per cent of total public capital outlays between 1962–1968 (the civil war era), while 23 per cent; 22 per cent; and 15 per cent were allocated in the post war era of 1970–1974; 1975-1980 and 1981–1985 (corresponding to the various National Development Plans).
The road transport also continued to receive over half of the total public sector capital outlay, with road infrastructure receiving the lion’s share of 58 per cent; 67 per cent; 71 per cent and 60 per cent of the transport sector’s share during the period, while rail, air and water, shared the remaining allocations along 42 per cent; 33 per cent; 29 per cent and 40 per cent in the first, second, third and fourth development plans respectively.
Between 1960 and 2009, the transport sector contributed between 1.9 and 5.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the country. Road transport alone accounted for over 60 per cent in the 1960s; over 80 per cent in the 1980s and over 90 per cent in the 1990s and 2000s.
Since independence, roads accounted for over 70 per cent of passengers and freight movements, and over 95 per cent of the goods to and from the seaports.
As at 2007, only 35 per cent of the federal highways were rated as being in a good or very good condition. The last assessment of the Federal Draft Green Paper for Consultation II Roads, carried out by FERMA in March 2011, revealed that only 26.5 per cent of federal roads passed the integrity test.
But, despite the deplorable condition of the roads, the traffic volumes have consistently been on the rise.
According to a traffic data on federal roads, about five per cent of the roads carry over 10,000 vehicles per day (vpd); 19 per cent carry between 6,000 –10,000 vpd, while 26 per cent and 51 per cent of the road carry between 4,500 – 6,000 vpd and less than 4,500 vpd.
The density of traffic on the road, with its attendant wear and tear informed the need for thinking out of the box to frontally confronting funding of road maintenance.
Recession compounded the problems for the government as rooftop foreign exchange became a nightmare.
Fashola argued that whereas the Ministry of Works alone, requires N2 trillion to maintain all federal roads in 2016, (and perhaps yearly), only N433.4 billion was appropriated to the three ministries under his jurisdiction last year.
According to Fashola, the options before Nigerians, is to choose between fire and a deep sea. He told his audience that the choice is either to pay for good road network, or refuse, and be buffeted all round by grossly dilapidated roads.
The incontestable fact is that the President Muhammadu Buhari inherited bad roads as most of the 193,200 kilometres roads network are crying for attention.
To avoid the initiative being steeped in the murky waters of politics, government may conclude all rehabilitation works by the first quarter of 2018, and kick off test run by the second quarter 2, next year. The minister hinted that the private sector would be invited to manage the facilities.
Fashola said that tolls would be introduced in 38 points across the country. Though the exact locations where the new toll plazas would be located have not been identified, Fashola stated that the government may stick to the old locations.
What this means invariably is that each state capital will have one toll plaza, with Abuja or Lagos having two. Conservatively, if each toll plaza makes N1 million monthly, the government is projecting to rake in N38 million/month, and about N54.7 billion/year. In two years, N1 trillion could be set aside to carry out maintenance.
A public affairs analyst, Lekan Shote, who lauded the idea behind the return of the toll gates, hinged his reservations on the erosion of the people’s purchasing power.
According to him, just like the fuel increase regimes worsened the people’s living conditions, the toll imposition will further recess the people’s income and increase the cost of doing business for most struggling Nigerians, battling with a meager income.
Those who will be worse hit by the toll reintroduction are the ordinary people, especially, traders, as transporters will eventually pass the cost to them.
Transportation and logistics experts insist that nothing is wrong with collection of tolls on any road, be it federal, state or local government. The snag, they argue, is that the people’s disposable income have been badly impacted by recession that introducing toll at this time would be adding to their misery.
Shote likened the toll fee (road tax), may further tighten the net against the nation’s huge members of the informal sector, who still escape the tax net. “If you do not pay income tax or company tax, you will at least pay road toll indirectly as long as you ply the roads or buy goods freighted on the roads.”
He blamed Buhari’s macroeconomic policies which has eroded Nigerians’ earning capacity.
But, Dr. Joseph Shojobi, a foremost transportation systems engineer and planner, said nothing better outside tolling, lies in the horizon if Nigerians are to enjoy quality roads with better markings and signage.
Shojobi, who retired 50 years ago from the University of Lagos as a senior lecturer, claimed Nigerians loses N80 billion daily as vehicular occupational cost as a result of the state of the nation’s roads.
He served as Chairmen of the post war Federal Roads Advisory Committee under Alhaji Femi Okunnu as the Federal Commissioner for Works & Transport. The retired don described as “government’s most unpardonable gaffe,” the cancellation of toll plaza by the Obasanjo administration.
Blaming the deplorable conditions of the roads on the stoppage of the tolls in 2002, Shojobi said that despite the outcry that the plazas were becoming a cesspool of corruption, the revenue accrued from the plazas was close to a billion Naira as at 2000, and would have outstripped a trillion by 2016.
Quoting figures, Shojobi said the toll collection, as at 2000, was N569 million, N742 million in 2001 and N779 million in 2002.
He said: “If this revenue had been allowed to continue to grow, we would have gone pass N1 trillion, and we would not be cash strapped in fixing the roads.”
Shojobi said that successive governments have continued to strive against shrinking revenue in confronting the bad state of the roads headlong.
He said series of interventions such as the introduction of petrol tax, on which series of price increments over the years have been pegged, necessitating the establishment of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), or the establishment FERMA, to handle regular maintenance of roads have continued to fail due to paucity of funds.
The storm ahead
Though Fashola has assured that much of the details behind the eventual reintroduction of the toll regime were in the works, Nigerians have also taken the government to task to come up with more disclosures that would assist in planning their activities and living.
One of the very basic information already released by the government was that the new plazas would be introduced at the old locations, which obviously would be along the government’s approved corridor. But for states like Lagos, achieving such may increase the burden of millions of people living even up to kilometre 50, on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
“For most of us living at Warewa, Magboro, Ofada, Aseese, Arepo, Mowe, Ibafo and other sundry boundary communities on that axis, the news was a bombshell as it would add to our financial burden on both sides of the carriage,” Anthony Umeh, a regular commuter said.
Another concern identified by regular users of the road is that the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, for instance, now provides home to no fewer than a dozen religious institutions, many of which also offers estate facilities to their faithful, who lives therein while they work in the city.
Umeh and Godwin Oku, a commercial bus driver who operates the Mowe-Berger route, said it would be nice if the government can relocate the plaza to a little after the Redemption Camp. They said that with living and commercial activity already encroaching on the old toll gate at the Ojo end of the highway, retaining the plaza there will not serve the purpose for which it was meant to serve.
Patrick Adenusi of Safety Without Borders said one of the bane of Nigeria’s development is policy summersault. He recalled that all stakeholders rose against the cancellation of the toll system by the Obasanjo administration, but that lack of political will stood against its immediate reversal by successive governments, “until the reality of an empty purse went beyond a mere headache or rhetoric to threaten the very heart of governance.”
He said had the late Musa Yar’Adua or Goodluck Jonathan administrations demonstrated the will, the short-sighted decision taken on suspicion of sleaze or corruption for which anti-corruption agencies such as the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Offences Commission (ICPC) and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) were later created, Nigeria would not have slipped into becoming the third country with the most unsafe roads in the world.
Adenusi said the toll system being contemplated by the government is part of the elements that is embedded in the new Road Trust Fund Bill, which has passed its second reading, and has moved to committee stage for further fine-tuning.
He said while tolling may be a very sure way of bailing the nation out of its poor road maintenance profile, transportation system experts must be involved in building a sustainable strategy in maintaining the cluster of roads in the country.
Like Adenusi, Shojobi listed vehicle count, traffic density and travel pattern as factors that must be considered in coming up with locations where the plazas should be sited.
Shojobi said so many variables, among them; new trends in transportation patterns, population, vehicle density, migration, and other factors, may have adversely affected the old locations, which may make siting the new ones on same spots unprofitable.
“I have no doubt that the government would employ experts in coming up with various engineering solutions now that the government is looking at the various strategies to help it resolve its maintenance quagmire,” he said.
The scholar pointed out the need for a review of road classifications in the country. A decision that may also inform the reclassification of some roads hitherto classified as Trunk B as a Trunk A, while some Trunk C roads could actually have been serving as Trunk B as a result of its vehicular density.
Viewing the nature of maintenance of the nation’s roads, Shojobi suggested that roads should be broadly classified into two major classes as the 774 local governments across the country has proven too weak to be saddled with road maintenance.
Other revenue spots
Shojobi identified insurance premiums, import duty tariffs, vehicle assessment tax, MOT certification and other other road related taxes and levies as some sources the government can explore to generate more money to maintain its roads.
He said corporate organisations, as well as individuals, may also be invited to assist in rehabilitating any road with provisions for adequate incentives to recoup their investments.
Experts added that if exploited, the toll regime may be become the needed elixir to extricate the roads from of neglect and dilapidation.
For instance, Shojobi insisted that the collectable revenue should be put into a sinking fund under the administration of an independent agency.
From the fund, the agency which should compose of incorrigible Nigerians should embark on the allocation of funds for any classes of roads across the country.
Reminiscing on the impact of such an agency in the past – the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) in the rehabilitation of all classes of roads across the country, Shojobi said that such an agency should be in charge of administering the fund on behalf of Nigerians.
Describing roads as a national and an international asset linking communities and countries, Shojobi said that the time has come for Nigerians to accept the reality of paying to finance its maintenance.
“Everybody want to own a bit of the road but it is a national asset. As a national asset, it must be maintained regularly if we must continue to get the best value from its usage. As the people pay for the use of electricity or even water supply, or the use of gas, they hardly considered road as a resource worth paying for. Nobody thinks of paying for the use of the road. So, we end up abusing our little space on it. All of that would change if we begin to exploit the various opportunities that we could get by getting the best mileage of these roads which are our commonwealth. We should begin to pay for the use of the roads and the best place to start is to by introducing the toll regime,” Shojobi added.
