Why the reintroduction of road tolls will increase price of petrol

The Minister for Power, Works, and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has thrown a tax curve at hapless Nigerians through a policy to reinstate tolls on Nigeria’s highways.

Fashola stated that the Ministry of Works alone required N2tn to maintain federal roads alone in 2016, whereas only N433.4bn was allocated to the triple ministries of Power, Work, and Housing in the 2016 Budget.

Fashola further explained that The Ministry of Power, Works, and Housing is only waiting for the completion of these roads before tollgates are introduced

Many Nigerians have been raising eyebrows over the reinstatement of the tolls, Nigerians are already overburdened by high inflation rates, bank interest rates, and foreign exchange rates, will be the worse for it.

Due to the following reasons, the reinstatement of road tolls may likely work like an increase in the price of petrol:

Cost of doing business:

Additional costs, like paying of tolls may likely increase the cost of doing business, and gnaws at the already meagre profit of struggling businesses. Those who will be worse hit by the expected toll road are the market mammies, who make little profit; transporters will eventually pass the cost to them.

Inflation:

It is needless to add that the hapless consumers, will eventually be the final victims in this chain of transferred costs. You may have seen “danfo” or combi bus conductors impose tolls on market women. Sometimes, you feel like weeping as these women resign to the impossible levies imposed by the bus conductors.

Absence of a workable transport infrastructure:

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Reinstatement of the tolls coupled with the absence of a workable transport infrastructure meant that Nigerians would spend more on transportation, while the cost of fuel and transportation would be added to the cost of goods.

Wrong timing due to challenges of current times:

It is a wrong time for the government to come up with such policies, things are quite difficult for many Nigerians presently; the policy would inflict pains on Nigerians, difficulties of the past and the challenges of the current times imply that the government must take difficult decisions on these sorts of critical national issues.

In other words, roads can be an alternative means of transporting commodities, if Nigeria depends on income from tolls, we may have to consider the amount of income that railways can bring to the coffers of the government.