Takoradi, Jan. 18, GNA - Workers of the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) in the Western Region have called on the Government to adopt immediate measures to check fraudulent practices at toll bridges in the Region.

They complained that billions of cedis of the taxpayer's money had gone to enrich private pockets to defeat the objective of the establishment of the Road Fund Secretariat to raise more taxes from road and bridge tolls. At a meeting at Takoradi on Friday, the workers called for the reverting of the management of the Beposo and Ankobra toll bridges back to the GHA.

This, they said would ensure effective maintenance of the bridges and also accrue more revenue to the state. The workers said they had reasons to suspect that a lot of malpractices were going on within the Secretariat and alleged that certain "top officials" were hiding behind the privatisation programme to enrich themselves at the expense of the taxpayer. They claimed that the bidding for the management of the toll bridges was not done in the best interest of the state. For instance they said the person who won the bid to manage the Beposo Toll Bridge was strangely asked to pay only 8,500 Ghana cedis each month even though he offered to pay 12,000 Ghana cedis a month. The workers also alleged that some top officers of the Road Fund Secretariat were behind the "sell out" of the bridges to their favourites. They are also behind the refusal of those people who failed to comply with the GHA Law to bid for the management of the bridges every two years.

Mr Ransford Asare, spokesman for the workers explained that according to the GHA Law, the management of toll bridges should be bided for every two years, but for four years now no effort had been made to fulfil this demand.

He said with the increase in the population of articulated trucks and other heavy vehicles using these facilities since 2004 the private operator of the bridges had been making several billion of cedis profit at the expense of the state.