The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Ernest Aryeetey has revealed that the school is likely to start charging road tolls again after government failed to pay 8 million cedis loan that was contracted for rehabilitation of roads in the school.
This comes on the back of the Supreme Court’s dismissal of a case against the University over its decision to charge road tolls to offset this debt.
The Ministry of Roads and Highways in a statement issued in February 2014, declared its intent to absorb the loan.
However in an interview, Professor Aryeetey said his checks at the bank indicate that the Ministry’s financial commitment had not yet been met. ‘Government as far as I know is doing what it can to make payments but I also know that the Bank has not received any payment.’
The University of Ghana earlier suspended the collection of road tolls, but Prof Aryeetey indicated that the University has not ruled-out going back to the idea of charging road tolls.
‘Right from the beginning, we knew there was no constitutional matter here. Indeed I can go further and say there was no legal issue there. Parliament had said the University of Ghana was within its rights as far as the law was concerned to do what it did,’ he stated.
‘The fact that the Supreme court said it lacked jurisdiction was very much what we expected. As a university we have to sit down and take into account all that has happened and decide what we want to do but for the avoidance of doubt, there is no legal impediment to do what we did,’ he further explained.
Background
The University of Ghana closed all access routes into its campus to the public with the exception of the entrance from the Okponglo intersection.
The closure was announced after the school was forced to suspend its tolling system which generated public outcry leading to the destruction of one of its toll booth by national security operatives.
Subsequently, only vehicles with the 2014 UG sticker were allowed to enter and exit the school through all the access routes.
Credit:citifmonline.com
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