- Ghana Revives Road Tolls Through 20-Year Electronic Collection PPP
Ghana’s Parliament has approved a 20-year public-private partnership concession for the reintroduction of road and bridge tolls through a nationwide electronic collection platform, marking a major shift in the financing and management of the country’s transport infrastructure.
The agreement is between the Ministry of Roads and Highways and a Special Purpose Vehicle to be established by Rock Africa Limited, according to information presented on the parliamentary approval.
The proposed platform will replace the manual toll collection system suspended in November 2021 with an automated model intended to reduce cash handling, limit revenue leakages and allow motorists to pass through tolling points without prolonged stops.
The concession represents a return to the user-pays principle at a time when Ghana’s constrained public finances have reduced the government’s capacity to fund road construction and maintenance entirely from tax revenue and borrowing.
Under the arrangement, the private-sector partner is expected to participate in financing, designing, deploying, operating and maintaining the electronic tolling infrastructure over the 20-year concession period.
The model could allow the government to mobilise technology and investment without bearing the entire initial capital cost. In return, the concessionaire would likely recover its investment through an agreed share of toll collections or another revenue mechanism established under the contract.
The precise revenue-sharing formula, investment commitments, performance benchmarks and conditions for transferring the infrastructure back to the state were not contained in the information made available for this article.
Those details will be critical in determining whether the agreement delivers value for money to the state and motorists.
The approval advances a policy that has been under development since 2025. Cabinet previously approved the reintroduction of road and bridge tolls alongside a transition towards automated collection, improved auditability and reduced congestion. The Roads and Transport Committee subsequently indicated that the electronic tolling system was expected to become operational during the fourth quarter of 2026.
The government has presented toll restoration as a means of rebuilding a predictable revenue stream for road maintenance.
Parliament’s Roads and Transport Committee said the previous tolling system generated about GH¢60.00 million a month before its suspension, although the eventual revenue performance of the electronic regime will depend on toll rates, the number of covered roads, compliance and collection costs.
Digital tolling could address several weaknesses associated with the old manual system.
Cash-based collection created opportunities for underreporting and leakage, while vehicles queuing at tollbooths contributed to congestion, fuel consumption and travel delays.
An electronic system could use vehicle identification technology, prepaid accounts, mobile payment platforms or automated billing to collect charges while vehicles remain in motion.
However, the efficiency of the system will depend on reliable databases, payment integration, cybersecurity and clear procedures for handling vehicles whose owners fail to pay.
Data protection will also be important because a nationwide tolling platform may collect information on vehicle identities, travel routes, payment records and account holders.
The approval generated debate over the abolition of tolls by the previous administration.
Bimbilla Member of Parliament and former Defence Minister Dominic Nitiwul defended the 2021 suspension, arguing that the policy was intended to avoid imposing both road tolls and the Electronic Transfer Levy on motorists during a period of economic difficulty.
He nevertheless backed the transition to electronic tolling, describing automation as more efficient than returning to the former cash-based system.
For the government, the concession provides an opportunity to demonstrate that public-private partnerships can finance essential infrastructure without creating unmanageable fiscal liabilities.
Yet long-term concessions can expose the state to risks when demand assumptions are overly optimistic, contracts guarantee private returns or termination clauses impose substantial costs on taxpayers.
Transparent publication of the concession agreement, financial model and procurement process would therefore be necessary to strengthen public confidence.
The government will also need to establish how toll revenue will be divided between concession costs, road maintenance and new construction.
Motorists are more likely to accept renewed charges where revenue is transparently linked to visible improvements in road quality, safety and travel time.
Electronic tolling is also expected to form part of larger infrastructure projects. The planned 176-kilometre Accra–Kumasi Expressway, for example, is designed to include intelligent transport systems and electronic tolling alongside interchanges, bridges and emergency facilities.
The Rock Africa concession could therefore become an important component of Ghana’s broader effort to modernise transport financing and reduce dependence on annual budget allocations.
Its success will ultimately be judged not simply by the amount of revenue collected, but by whether the system is affordable, transparent, technically reliable and capable of translating toll payments into better-maintained roads.
The specific 20-year concession and Rock Africa SPV details were contained in the information supplied for this report but could not be independently confirmed from the parliamentary records publicly accessible at the time of publication.
