Vehicles to pay fees half-yearly

Vehicle owners will soon be paying half-yearly road user fees ranging from 4,000 cedis for motor cycles to 300,000 cedis for articulated trucks above 32 tonnes if a bill introduced in Parliament is enacted. The road (vehicle use) fee bill, which emanates from the 1998 budget, is aimed at raising funds for the routine maintenance of roads. The fees will be paid into the road fund established in 1997. Motor vehicles with up to 2,000 cubic capacity will pay 24,000 cedis while those above 2,000 will attract 56,000 cedis. Buses and coaches will be paying 32,000 cedis, fees for rigid cargo trucks up to 16 tonnes will be 28,000 cedis and those between 16 and 22 tonnes will attract 32,000 cedis. The fee for rigid cargo trucks above 22 tonnes is 48,000 cedis. The licensing authority will charge a fee of 8,000 cedis to replace defaced or lost certificates. Vehicles owned by the Ghana Armed Forces, the Police, Fire and Prison services, and ambulances are exempted from the road user fee and use of the accompanying certificate. The minister of roads and transport may, by a legislative instrument, exempt others from the payment of the fees. Any person, who drives or uses a motor vehicle with no valid road user certificate or fails to display the certificate on his vehicle windscreen commits an offence that could attract 500,000 cedis, a three month jail term or both.