Times Of Swaziland: FINALLY: TOLL GATES IN PIPELINE

FINALLY: TOLL GATES IN PIPELINE
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BY SIBONGILE SUKATI on 06/05/2021 08:12:00


MBABANE – After years of toying with the idea of having toll roads in the
country, these could soon be introduced.
This comes after the gazetting of the Road Authority Bill, 2021, which is
expected to be tabled by the Minister of Public Works and Transport, Chief
Ndlaluhlaza Ndwandw,e in Parliament soon. The objective of the Bill is to
provide for the establishment of a Roads Authority that shall be responsible
for; the development of an adequate road network in order to ensure
accessibility, the construction of roads, managing the financing of the
construction of roads and the maintenance of the national road network.
According to Section 7 of the proposed law, the minister may declare a public
road or any portion of it, including any bridge or tunnel on a public road, as a
toll road. The issue of toll roads was first discussed during the ninth
Parliament, at the time when the Minister of Public Works and Transport was
Ntuthuko Dlamini.
Discarded
However, the Members of Parliament then, did not see eye-to-eye on the issue and
eventually the idea was discarded. The money for the proposed tolls will be
collected from road users and will be used to maintain and construct national
roads in the country. However, Section 8 of the proposed Bill states that a
public road or portion thereof shall not be declared a toll road unless a local
authority affected by the declaration has been consulted. It further states that
the minister responsible shall, by notice in a gazette, make known an intention
to declare a toll road or withdraw such declaration. “In the case of a
declaration of a toll road, the notice shall indicate the approximate position
of the toll plaza contemplated for the proposed toll road and invite any person
affected to lodge written representations in relation  to the intention by the
minister within 14 days from the date of the notice,” reads Section 9 (a) and
(b).
The Bill seeks to establish the Eswatini Roads Authority, which shall be a
category A public enterprise as contemplated in the Public Enterprises (Control
and Monitoring) Act, 1989. The functions of the authority will be mainly to plan
and design road construction projects and road maintenance programmes relating
to the national road network. According to Section 4 (1b), the authority will
also manage and maintain road projects and programmes and further manage funding
of road projects and programmes, including the management of the monies of the
Roads Authority and of a road user charging system, providing for the management
of road funding in accordance with the principle of commercialised
decision-making and road maintenance costs recovery from road users.