Kwesi Amoako Atta, Minister for Roads and Highways
Alhaji Inusah Fuseini has said the Minister for Roads and Highways, Kwesi Amoako-Atta, can be charged for causing financial loss to the state over his unilateral decision to collapse toll booths across the country.
According to Inusah Fuseini, a former MP for Tamale Central, Kwesi Amoako-Atta cannot extricate himself from the charges of causing financial loss to the state.
“I’ll be surprised if the revenue loss at the toll booth is not raised in the Auditor-General’s report for 2021. This must definitely be raised in the report of the Auditor-General,” he said.
Speaking on the Ghana Yensom morning show on Accra 100.5 FM hosted by Kwame Obeng Sarkodie on Tuesday, February 23, 2022, Mr. Fuseini noted that the roads and highways minister’s decision was illegal because the decision to collapse the toll booths must be taken by Parliament and not the sector minister.
“This is so because the Road Fund Act for the promulgation of charges of toll was passed by Parliament,” he stressed adding “It is the reason the finance minister during the 2022 budget statement to Parliament said toll booths will be removed if the budget is passed. The Finance Minister did not say it will be removed immediately.”
According to him, the budget read in Parliament was not for 2021 but for the year 2022 and the funds from the road tolls have been accounted for in the 2021 budget of the Ministry of Roads and Highways.
The former legislator who is a lawyer by profession explained that it was wrong for the Minister to go ahead and remove the toll booths when the 2022 budget had not been approved by Parliament.
He stressed that the decision to remove the toll booths ought to have been taken to Parliament but the Minister failed on that score.
He said the Minister is a possible candidate for a criminal prosecution, adding that, criminal prosecutions have no time limit, maintaining that, it can be done after the New Patriotic Party has been voted out of government.