Toll Booth Closure: Group commends Govt for absorbing 35% of persons with disabilities into YEA

The Youth Employment Agency has absorbed about 35% of the disabled workers who used to man tollbooths in some parts of the country.

The workers were rendered jobless after the government, through the Roads Ministry, abolished tolls on public roads and bridges in November 2021.

The government explained poor revenue performance and traffic congestion along major routes where the booths were located as the justification for the closure of the booths.

Speaking to the media in a press conference at the YEA’s office in Accra, the chairperson for the unemployed physically challenged group, Rashad Mohammed Ramat, disclosed that after they were dislodged from their previous positions as managers of the toll booths, they staged a demonstration in Kumasi, following which the government pledged to offer them new jobs.

According to him, the government has presently employed about 35% of the total number of disabled people who were made to go home following the suspension of the tollbooth operations.

He said the total number of disabled people who were dislodged after the collapse of the operations of the tollbooths was about 278, of which 99 have been engaged by the YEA.

Rashad pleaded with the agency to endeavour to employ his fellows who do not have the requisite qualifications and skills for the job they intend.

“Let’s take it that the agency has employed 35 percent of the total number of disabled people who were sent to sit at home since the tollbooth operations were suspended, because we were 278 and they have employed about 99 of us who have the necessary qualifications that warrant that we be employed,” he explained.

He said as they are going to be posted to the various districts across Ghana, their main occupation is to speak for their brothers and sisters who are maltreated in the sharing of the national cake in all the Metropolitan, Municipal, and District assemblies (MMDAs) in the country.
On behalf of his colleagues, he thanked the government for the opportunity given them again to work and called on all well-meaning Ghanaians to come to their aid in helping them the more since most of their members aren’t working and face all manner of predicaments.