Office Conducts Studies to Generate Additional Financial Sources for Road Maintenance

 Addis Ababa May 31/2018 The Ethiopian Road Fund Office said it has been conducting studies to identify the potential revenue sources that would help to tap additional financial sources for road maintenance across the country. In an exclusive interview with ENA Ethiopian Road Fund Office Director General, Rashid Mohammed said his office is striving to introduce new options that would help to avail sufficient financial resources for road maintenance. Current financial sources for funding road maintenance in the country include fuel levy on axle weight bases, annual vehicle license renewal fee and overloading fines and transit fee from vehicles transporting commodities to and from neighboring countries based on the bilateral agreement, he noted. According to the director, there is a gap between the amount of budget allocated for new road construction and the amount required for maintaining the existing roads that needs to be addressed. Thus, the office is working on introducing new options that will help to acquire more financial resources to fill the gap and promote quality road maintenance across the country, he said.  “We have been conducting different studies deploying international consultants to identify the potential revenue sources for road maintenance by introducing new options that would help to generate additional revenue for road maintenance that should not affect the macroeconomic policy of the country.” The office has also resolute to bench mark the experience of African countries like Zambia and Zimbabwe, who have introduced road maintenance financing toll fee collection systems, he indicated. According to Rashid, the toll fee collection system will require all vehicle owners to pay fees for road maintenance, which will help to minimize the financial resource gap of the office. Recently the office introduced annual vehicle license renewal fee that helped to generate 200 million birr,  “We are mandated to avail adequate financial resources for maintenance for all types of roads, the director added. “We have recently introduced annual vehicle license renewal fee in which we were able to generate about 200 million birr over the past several months of the current fiscal year.”  Noting that inadequate financial resources for maintenance of roads is the main challenge that   his office facing , he called for   collective efforts and broader engagement of key stakeholders including road users and different road agencies to help solve the shortage of financial resources. So far more than 90 percent of all weather roads of the country upgraded with quality maintenance for public transport, Rashid added. Ethiopian Road Fund Office is allocating about 2.5 billion birr per year for maintenance of roads across the country.