Who Pays the Piper?

A toll road on Afienya-Akosombo road

 I believe it wasn’t too long ago when road tolls in Ghana skyrocketed as part of on-going general tax adjustments. I was particularly unimpressed with the usual flurry of citizen’s objections to tax hikes because in my estimation, an increase from 5p to 50p after a 20 year lull, probably more, was nothing to cry about. Never mind that unlike others I hardly use toll roads. Anyways that standpoint changed somewhat when I dared to drive out of town and outside my 5km radius during the just ended Christmas break. Simply put its daylight robbery to toll certain roads and it doesn’t matter if the state needs my money.

 

toll "booth" at Afienya

Clearly traditional sources of road financing like the consolidated fund gave way long ago. Simply was inadequate. Ghana’s Road Fund Act lists its sources as,  a) International and Transit Fees; b) Vehicle Registration and Road Use Fees (which contributes more than 80% of the fund; c) Petrol and diesel levy and d) Road and Bridge tolls. Recently the Minister of Roads and Transport suggested inclusion of a tax on Liquefied Petroleum Gas.

In the early 2000s during the HIPC days (the rather challenging Highly Indebted Poor Countries label) also came the build and operate concept. With this approach to road financing, the financier (private business, bilateral donors and the Bretton Woods Institutions who inspired the cost recovery principle) recovered funds used or lent to the state for building or repairing a road from tolls collected on that road. Thus many roads acquired “toll road” status. Before then road or bridge tolls were known only in relation to 2 of Nkrumah’s legacies: the Tema-Accra Motorway and the Adomi Bridge on the Volta Lake, both built soon after independence.   And the rationale is obvious - gratification, cost recovery, maintenance. Suffice it to say, the facilities had been built, well built so there was justification for cost recovery on the investment and maintenance for our continued gratification. No qualms about that. Needless to say my recent experience is in complete variance with the gratification-cost recovery-maintenance triangle.  

Adomi Bridge near Akosombo

Now I am not against road tolls. Heck just so I could collect “priceless” receipts and smiles from the always and I mean ALWAYS pleasant toll collectors, I used to want to pay so much more; my generosity often a threat to my dad’s coin box. It must have been something other than customer service though because; the booths don’t have smiling takers anymore. What is more likely the case is that the toll collectors thought I was adorable! I mean how could a chirpy 3 or 4 year old standing on the supple thighs of mommy or the maid (car seats for kids were not yet invented), held in check by firm hands (which were as good if not better seat belts at the time) and handing out daddy’s coins not be adorable? Snap the happy thoughts!

Did I say already that I don’t mind paying tolls? I did and I meant it. However I don’t want to pay tolls on broken roads that give me no joy driving on them. Perhaps we should take a cue from both the South African and Nigerian experiences. The former revamped their roads and yet faced citizen rebellion against payment of road tolls; the latter did nothing to revamp or build the roads before instituting tolls and citizens rightly and forcefully refuse to be ripped off!  What do you say? We take the State’s approach to tolling in the South African example and the citizens’ response from the Nigerian example and voila! Life sure is that simple. Better still copy the ingenuity of the Europeans and “let the foreigners pay”!

 

toll booth on Dodowa road

The Crossroads

 I lurk the streets, which accounts for my obsession with the road. However I will do myself the favour and declare that this will be my last soliloquy about it. Right now I can’t help but comment on road intersections.

I usually stop at an intersection, hitherto junction and wait for the opportune moment or some indication that it is okay to poke my nose (really that of my car) into the road. I have always imagined that’s the way to go most of the time. My nose by the way could use and indeed does threaten to get past the windscreen a good many times; that is if I am to see around the party of sign posts at junctions but I will leave the matter of sign posts for another day.

There’s been a slight change in my behaviour at junctions in recent times. At junctions these days, I keep inching forwards and forwards and then ... dash! Off course I have no intention to graduate to the game of “I got to the junction, didn’t watch who was coming, but didn’t forget to stick my mid finger at the person behind me who almost rammed my behind!”  That is a Formula One move I would much rather not try as its only objective seems to be to taunt the brakes of oncoming vehicles. Trends in vehicle importations and scenes at the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority) make it a rather dodgy venture.  

Easing into traffic from a junction can be stressful for any sane person and I am imagining my very self to be one such person. There seems a rationale totally beyond my comprehension that prompts the Ghanaian motorist, who being a safe distance away from a junction,  would instinctively speed up to it just when a  fellow road user (usually me) is about getting into the road from the junction. Commercial drivers do it, women, old and young do it. The younger women usually in sunglasses of amazing sizes and shapes, take on a stern, stiff posture that can only mean, “Don’t you even try”. The men in their starched chequered shirts, speaking on their BBs unceasingly and paying little attention to the traffic that is usually amassing behind them do it! And since we are to do as the Romans when in Rome, our guests seem to have caught the bug big time. Always and only when I am seen trying to get in the road from a junction. Many times when I notice the frantic efforts of a driver to stick the glue on me at a junction, I stop mid way to allow the vehicle to go by. As if by clockwork, the driver would stop and insist that I get in the road. Mmm unbelievable.            

Junction experiences are to die for, really. A driver comes by and rather than using the opportunity that presents itself to allow me to ease onto the road, keeps staring at me like, “eyes right” or left as it may be and all the while slowly passing by anyway, still staring. Or this; an    angel actually slows down for me to enter the road and Smart Alek manoeuvres from behind to overtake the angel, making it impossible for me to take advantage of the rare thoughtfulness of a kindred spirit. And here’s another; I am waiting to join a road at a junction, another driver drives round my blind side and to add salt to injury (I have to say I have a dislike for this expression and its injurious effects) begins to urge me on to “go, go, go”. Now really, science has yet to endow me with the power to see through metal and humans.  Little wonder the ingenious natives have found the perfect antidote – simply enter the road at top speed without a care. If you have the nerve which many of my compatriots seem to have, it works! Well, enough times otherwise it’s the expected – tyres screeching, tail lights popping out, bad-tempered invectives, and we all go our un-merry way.

So then most junctions seem to need the services of traffic wardens, whether or not they are blessed with working traffic lights and whether or not on a major road. In truth, traffic lights seem to have lost their touch anyway. They neither get vehicles to stop nor do they make them move on. When the lights turn red, the stream of cars keep moving and sometimes never stop till the lights turn green again for the same side. Traffic wardens sometimes have to place themselves in front of moving vehicles to force them to stop. On the other hand some drivers take their naps at the traffic light. When it’s time to move, it’s another few minutes before they move.

A quick note about traffic wardens; they come in different shades- luminous green or yellow vested ones whose credentials as traffic managers are questionable; our usual uniformed compatriots and their yellow shirted assistants, whose job descriptions are unstable but much clearer in places where troskies abound, and then the others wielding palm branches who have the keenest sense and capacity for street chaos management. I prefer the latter for obvious reasons.

The situation makes me think the traffic warden’s job is one to watch on the job market; deadly but rewarding. Plus we make some savings on traffic light installations and improve unemployment figures simultaneously perhaps? Just saying.

akuyaafriyie@gmail.com

Your Right of Way or Mine



I happen to be of the view that, on the road it is pretty easy to tell when it’s my right of way and when it is not, or so my common (or not so common) sense lets me think. That view is being severely challenged.



I am driving along on MY SIDE of the road. By the way, we do drive on the right in Ghana, do we not? So as I was saying, I am driving on MY SIDE of the road, taking care not to drive in the middle even though I could very well follow the good examples about me. Here comes a vehicle from the opposite direction on MY SIDE of the road. Could that mean that driver is driving on the left hand side of the road? At any rate I slow down and open my eyes a little wider – just to be sure.  The vehicle keeps coming at me with appreciable haste and so I fast forward to the “now and at the hour of our death” part of the Hail Mary. See, I take my Catholicity seriously. The driver swerves to the right just in the nick of time and wags a finger at me; that was the Artful Dodger on the dusty road near my home!

Now, shift to that very important bit of road I call the tunnel road.  This tunnel road I am told was originally a passage for cows around the time of independence. The cows don’t use it anymore; they completed their rite of passage onto main roads decades back. Anyway the tunnel road happens to be an integral part of Ghana’s regular road network and an indispensable national asset now. Only a single lane of cars can get through it at a time. However the frenzied activity preceding entry into the tunnel threatens to miraculously transform the tunnel into a 4-lane route daily and is only contained with strenuous exertions by charity boys. Like the dusty road near my home, it’s never any one’s right of way except the police who in their rush hours manage to trumpet a clearance from whichever direction; giving the lucky side the benefit of a hot pursuit. 

Tema Motorway



 It is my considered view that the famous Motorway (the first one) is just the sort of thing to deal with artful dodgers and tunnel crashers. I mean roads with at least 20 metres of space between the two opposing sides, preferably populated by thorny shrubs or dug out into vehicle swallowing troughs.  On such roads, the only possible mischief left to drivers is to stick to their lanes whether at 20kph, 50kph or 120kph. Never mind the reminder that the inner lane is a fast lane. But I digress. Point is if I had been driving on the Motorway, only spiritual conveyance would have made it possible for the likes of the Dodger to come charging at me on MY SIDE of the road let alone wag a finger at me! Unfortunately the new George Walker Bush Motorway, fine as it is, does not quite take after that or its own name. What’s with that name anyway? 



Walker Bush Motorway



It goes without saying that I quite like roads to keep straight and vehicles to do same. I mean we all stay in our lanes and keep at it till we get to our destinations. Needless to say policy makers think differently and contemporary engineers are readily at hand to deliver a variety of artistic contortions. I have to agree with them. Such a thing is practically impossible, so increasingly we have multiple lane roads, flyovers and quite a few round-about types, not meant for sight-seeing though. These innovations have a way of persuading even the most litigant motorist to consensus. And that’s where my misery begins. Whose way it is, is always a game of whose right it is – where rights accrue to the fittest.

Look left, look right, look left again!

I loved zebra crossings as a kid. Anytime I appeared beside them, cars stopped and I got to do a dainty skip across the white patches; if such a thing was ever possible. Many times I did it just for the heck of it. I loved the way vehicles stopped promptly at the sight of my commanding self – or so I thought. The one in front of my nursery school was conveniently positioned and of particular interest. It was right at the gates to the school so I reckoned I had no use for the school’s playground; much to the chagrin of the sweet street warden! 

Sad to say zebra crossings as I used to know and experience them are tough ones to pin down on our roads these days and I am no more the kid that wants to skip across them, even if I could find one. Motorists whiz across the hardly visible few on the roads as though they were mere street adornment. I am now the driver that desperately prays for a zebra crossing to materialize whenever I see just about anything that breathes along the road because I cannot tell at which point of the road and when it may jump in the road and cause me to do the unthinkable.

As I pondered the many wonders and hardships of life on the road in Accra it has become clear to me that the seeming absence of zebra crossings may actually be the natural attrition caused by the evolution of the zebra. The process of enlightenment simply involved the unravelling of how the monkey came to be my great grand Pa and voila, the descendants of zebra crossings had been right under my rather wide nose all the while!  So now unlike many who believe zebra crossings are an endangered species, I believe they have evolved. Road users simply have to recognize them and appreciate them for what they are. So here are a few pointers to help you along the way.

I think speed ramps are the most novel descendants of zebra crossings.  They are permanent fixtures on the road. They force you to slow down and in many cases stop to contemplate and negotiate your passage. Sometimes even reconsider your route. And if you so fatefully fail to see them, you are bound to feel them! Perfect road masters. But these are not what make them relatives of zebra crossings. I found that out on a lunch expedition recently. As we approached a speed ramp- my friend was driving- I held my breath as I always do.  No matter how gently one tries to get over them, the average speed ramp in Accra tends to give you a knock on the head anyway. Now my friend is usually not given to slow driving so in addition to holding my breath, my foot instinctively reached for the brakes and found air. They need not have bothered for my friend had come to a stop. A woman, burdened with a large basin of something that she balanced capriciously on her head had stepped onto the speed ramp and was making her way slowly but confidently across the road. On the speed ramp she stood tall and visible. The vehicles simply had to stop to allow her across the road, I mean ramp. The picture so reminded me of my own journeys on the zebra crossings at nursery school and I burst out laughing. Your guess is as good as mine. Speed ramps make excellent zebra crossings and since there is such a craving for them, I am thinking we might as well do the noble thing - cloak them in the white stripes.



decidedly for the neighbour's goodies



 “Cow Crossings” on the other hand were marked by wooden sign posts with cow symbols along country side roads in the past. The animals were hardly in sight. However, since the onset of urban migration the cows have also gone to town, literally. I came upon my first Cow Crossing one fine 6.am while on the school run. At that time of day, vehicles on the dusty road behind my estates – a road that is bound to decide the votes of the people in my area come December 2012 - have their headlights on, are speeding like demons on the run from the famous Bishop and in this frantic contest to wreck their vehicles, rendering the fact that I wash my car every evening seem like a needless fib. Little wonder the vehicles are usually from the direction of a place called “Nsamanpom”, which means “the place of ghosts”. Anyways, just on the outskirts of a posh neighbourhood, I was forced to stop behind most of the vehicles that had rocketed past me. I must say I was quite gratified by the fact that I was side by side with my tormenters and for a brief moment felt minded to stick out my tongue at them. The spectacle before me took that thought away.

Right in the middle of the road was a herd of not less than 20 cows seeming to be having a lively mooey conference to decide their next grazing location. Given the environs of this particular scene, I wondered if my neighbour’s backyard garden was in peril. It was not immediately evident to me where pasture for 20 cows a-grazing was to be found. With no herdsman in sight it took close to 15 minutes of shooing, nudging and some nifty manoeuvrings by daring taxi drivers to create a route for passage in between the bewildered creatures. And soon my former tormentors who had been huffing and puffing pretentiously into their mobile phones began to follow the lead of the taxi drivers.  This encounter was not my last so I look out for the Cow Crossings these days. A word of caution should you come across a Cow Crossing; they do not share the temperament of their forbearers. Those who have ventured to ride over them have paid dearly for that audacity.

As for People Crossings which in my view have an uncanny similarity with Cow Crossings (even though the subjects of the former are bound to insist on a different ranking in the order of species), they leave me speechless. How’s that for shutting my trap for now on this matter?