General Secretary of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU), Godfred Abulbira, has disclosed that the union will hold a meeting with its members to deliberate the way forward should government fail to consider the scrapping of some taxes on petroleum.
According to him, the meeting slated for tomorrow, October 26, 2021 will see members subsequently discuss whether they are going to “increase fare [and] by what margin”.
Highlighting some parts of the letter addressed to government, Mr Abulbira explained that the union just wants to make “an appeal” and request for the “fare increment to meet the fuel prices”.
“Government should look at it in a different angle and see whether they can remove some of the taxes we have listed on that letter; saying that some of them need to be reduced or scrapped off. On that letter we had mentioned the energy sector levies, NPPF levy… about six of them we have shortlisted. So, we thought government should look at them… even though some of them cannot be scrapped off completely, their margins should reduce…”
Mr Godfred Abulbira
That notwithstanding, Mr Abulbira noted that the removal of taxes will affect government . However, he revealed that he doesn’t want to have that “old conventional way” that the moment fuel prices go up then the union increases its fares.
“The moment fuel prices go up and fares are increased, it affects almost everything in Ghana. So, that is why looking at the current situation in Ghana, we just don’t want to rush to increase the fare so that we can take this approach and extend our period of negotiation to see that government will listen to us. Yes, they have made that submission and we heard that it will not be easy for government to agree to remove them. But let’s see what happens after tomorrow’s meeting and do our follow ups”.
Mr Godfred Abulbira
STC bemoans effect of fuel price increment
Prior to this, the Managing Director of the State Transport Company (STC), Nana Akomea, had disclosed that the increasing cost of fuel in the country is bringing unbearable hardships to the company.
He however, expressed optimism the Transport Ministry swiftly reaching an agreement with transport unions for the upward adjustment in fares. Nana Akomea further advised commercial transport users to brace themselves up for a high upward adjustment.
“In just one year, a litre has gone from 4.77 to 6.80. That’s about a 42% increase in fuel in one year. Fares have gone up by just 13% and that’s just one item. It isn’t easy… Usually, they [transport union] would engage the transport ministry and arrive at a consensus for the increase. What we have to bear in mind is that over the last year, fuel has gone up by over 40 per cent, and so if we are going to have fare increments, we have to bear that in mind”.
Nana Akomea
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