Members of the board and the minister
A new chairman and seven other members have been sworn into office for a four-year term on the Ghana Highways Authority (GHA) Board of Directors.
Engineer I. K. Mensah, who is a former Director of Urban Roads, was appointed Chairman of the Board by President Akufo-Addo.
Other members of the board are Dr. Abass Mohammed Awolu from the Ministry of Highways, Christian Nti (Ag. Chief Executive of GHA), Felix Aboagye of Road Users Association of Ghana, Mangowa Ghanney of the Finance Ministry, Adelaide Anno-Kumi of the Interior Ministry, and Ing. Isaac Addai of Ghana Association of Consultants.
The rest are Cynthia Asare Bediako of the Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry, and Ernest Oppong Boateng of the Private Road Transport Union.
The Minister of Roads and Highways, Akwasi Amoako-Atta, urged the reconstituted board members to be courageous and come up with decisions and policies that will ensure the control of vehicular traffic and collection of tolls are done right.
“These are areas that, I must be very honest with you, corruption is so ripe and reported every day. Recently you read in papers that some people were picked up from some Axle Load Centres because they were engaged in malpractices.
“The Axle Load Centres are not revenue centres. We are not expected to make money from them. If any driver is asked to pay anything it is a penalty. It means you have overloaded your axle and we put in punitive measures to serve as deterrent,” he stated.
“The funds that we put up at axle-load centres are penalties to deter drivers and transport owners not to overload their vehicles,” he explained and added that, “So if in a year it is reported that not even a pesewa was collected from all our axle-load centres (18) across the country then all of us should be clapping as a nation.”
He added, “We should rather be worried if it is reported that from the axle-load centres funds imposed amounted to GH¢1 trillion. We do not need the money because whatever the quantum of the fund, it cannot compensate.”
By Ernest Kofi Adu