NLC slams Senate for re-introducing toll gates

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Thursday in Abuja berated the Senate over its approval for the re-introduction of toll gates across the country.


The NLC General Secretary, Dr Peter Ozo-Eson, while reacting to the development, said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that Nigeria’s policy making processes needed to be interrogated.

NAN recalls that the Senate had on Tuesday passed a motion seeking to resuscitate the collection of tolls on federal highways across the country.

The Upper House argued that toll collection from motorists was the only way to construct and maintain roads and enhance their efficiency.

However, Ozo-Eson, in his reaction said:“We used to have toll gates and we started them under pressure from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, among others.

“We built a number of toll gates and the government itself came and tore down those structures.

“To come back again to re-introduce the toll gates means another waste of public resources and this shows that something is fundamentally wrong.

According to him, the first experience became an avenue for rewarding favoured cronies, who were given the franchise to collect the tolls.

He also noted that the nation never benefitted from the first experience as some set of people fed fat on the tolls and the roads were never maintained.

“Unless we are able to put in place a mechanism that will ensure that the revenues from the tolls are used for the development and maintenance of the roads, any attempt to bring the toll gates will again be a failure.”
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