Samuel Amoah, a member of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU), has urged drivers to ignore statements from the Ministry of Transport, labelling the 20 percent increase in fares illegal.
The Deputy Transport Minister, Hassan Tampuli, has described as unlawful, the increase in transport fares ahead of an engagement with transport operators.
He said the conventional meeting between the Ministry and stakeholders in the sector has not been held to agree on any fare increase, “We’ve called a meeting for the transport operators to come to the Ministry for us to have that conversation and a decision can be taken.
Samuel Amoah expressed surprise over the minister’s statement, as the ministry had previously made it seem they cared nothing for drivers.
He revealed the GPRTU had presented the ministry with a document for the revision of fares as far back as March 17, 2022, but they refused to sit down with them.
“When the fuel prices reached the 10 percent mark, we called on the ministry but they didn’t respond to us. When we reached the 40 percent mark and we still had not heard from the ministry. As we couldn’t look on for our members to use all their money to buy fuel, we decided to increase fares independently. We were surprised that after the increment, the ministry could then come out and describe it as illegal,” he told Don Kwabena Prah on Happy98.9FM’s ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ political show.
Addressing the swift response of the ministry after the fare increment, he asked, “We didn’t know the minister could do his work effectively like that. We have heard him but we will ignore him. If he had responded to our calls a long time ago, we wouldn’t have gotten here.”
The Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) on May 7, announced a 20% upward adjustment in transport fares.
This was prior to an earlier announcement by the Union that it hopes to adjust transportation fares upwards by 30% effective Friday, May 13.
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