The National Drivers Association of Ghana have announced that there will be 10% increment of transport fares from February 22.
The Association in a release dated Monday, 15th February, 2021, indicated that certain service charges at the DVLA and the ports have influenced the increment in transportation.
“As we speak, the service charge at DVLA has been increased to 15%, tariffs on spare parts increased to 40%, tariff on Lubricants increased by 25%. Due to the rapid increase of these services, we are calling on all Ghanaians to comply with the introduction of the new fare coming Monday.
“We ask all drivers to ensure passengers put on nose mask before they enter in their vehicles, together we can conquer COVID-19”.
The Public Relations Officer of the Concerned Drivers Association, David Agboado, commenting on this, stated that, the Ghana Road Transport Coordinating Council has always activated a reactionary posture in dealing with every issue brought before it by drivers.
He further issued a caveat to the regulating agency that they would go ahead to increase the fares despite the disapproval from the GRTCC.
“The Ghana Road Transport Coordinating Council cannot say they don’t know anything about this; I will be amazed. That is why we will do it and we will increase whether they approve it or not; It is not illegal. The Drivers and Vehicle Licensing Authority, we are the people that they work with, they should have told us they will increase their charges by 15 percent but they didn’t. Do you know that when you go to the VIP terminal right now they have changed their fares and nobody is complaining but we trotro drivers when we do people are hooting at us”.
On July 5, 2020, the Concerned Drivers Association held a press conference announcing their intention of increasing fares by 30% due to the impact of COVID-19 on their business and the increases in fuel prices.
Subsequently, some of the drivers started charging the 30% increment even without approval from either government or the driver unions.
The Deputy Transport Minister, Titus Glover, then, stated that the new fares charged by the drivers were illegal and that his ministry was going to engage with the drivers later that day to deliberate on their concerns, which were: either they’re allowed to load full buses without regard for social distancing or increase the fares by 30%.
Ignoring the Ministry’s position on the transport increment issue, the leadership of the Concerned Drivers Union remained defiant by sticking to the 30 percent increment.
National vice-chairman of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU), Mr. Robert Sarbah, appealed to the transport minister to either revise the transportation fares or allow drivers to resume with the normal intake of passengers in a vehicle, as the policy was causing undue financial strain on them.
He argued that, drivers commuting from Kaneshie to Takoradi were experiencing the pain of loss as the stress of vehicle maintenance compounded the already dire situation of the drivers.
