Road Safety Director Arrested For Allegedly Stealing Millions

The Director of Road Safety at the Ghana Highways Authority has been arrested by operatives of the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), formerly, Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).

Mr. Mohammed Abdellah Billey is said to have stolen millions through dubious diversions of money from axle load weighing of cargo vehicles.

The axle load of a wheeled vehicle is the total weight bearing on the roadway for all wheels connected to a given axle. 

Mr. Abdellah Billey is said to have used his bank accounts and mobile money accounts to route cash he made from the dubious manipulation of the axle load.

On Friday, the NIB stormed the office of the road safety director with some evidence of his alleged dubious dealings, arrested him, and placed him in the custody of national security.

He did not resist the arrest according to reports. Officials of the Special Monitoring and Surveillance Unit of the National Security are said to have presented him with evidence of paper trail from his dubious activities.

According to reports, Over 200,000 was tracked in his bank account as incoming transactions from the axle load fraud business at the time of his arrest.

Ghana is estimated to lose some GH¢370,000 daily at nine axle load weigh stations due to a sub-culture of tax evasion curated by some officials of the Ghana Highways Authority (GHA) and their assigned private agents at the various ports.

Reportedly, 22 suspects have been arrested in connection with the fraudulent setup.

Axle load is an important design consideration in the engineering of roadways and railways, as both are designed to tolerate a maximum weight-per-axle (axle load); exceeding the maximum rated axle load will cause damage to the roadway or rail tracks.

But many trucks at the Tema Port overload as a means of evading taxes with their accomplices said to be in the Highways Authority.