Ashanti Regional Cooperative Transport Union Chair, Isaac Kwabena Boateng says his association will not embark on a strike action for government to review lorry fares.
According to him, the ordinary Ghanaian who uses public transport will be the ones to suffer and not the government should they embark on a demonstration.
“Now a litre of fuel is Ghc6.90p and although government promised to reduce the prices of fuel, it has rather gone up by a pesewa. We promised to embark on a demonstration but I have realized that only passengers will suffer when we do this. Because fuel prices are high, we are trying to make sure we break even and have thought of something else,” he noted.
Sharing an alternative measure for drivers to make ends meet, he told Happy98.9FM’s Don Kwabena Prah on the Epa Hoa Daben political talk show, “Instead of increasing lorry fares we will increase the number of passengers by 1. So if we picked 3 passengers per row, we will increase the number to 4 and increase the number to 5 in a bus that picked 4 people per row. If lorry fares are not increased that is what we will do on Monday so it favours both drivers and passengers.”
The Union Chair clarified that if this is also not accepted then drivers have no option other than to revert to the method where pricing was done by transport unions independent of government. “We can go back to the days where we increased lorry fares immediately after fuel prices were also increased. This is also something we can start from Monday if the government refuses to review fuel prices. We are talking about lorry fares here and we will fight with the government to the end. If they increase taxes on fuel, then we will also let the passenger pay for it.”
Commercial transport drivers are hinting at a 20% increment in lorry fares after fuel prices rose sharply from Ghc4.00 per litre in January 2021 to Ghc6.90p in November.
