FINALLY: TOLL GATES IN PIPELINE

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.

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