The Coalition of Private Transport Operators has rejected government’s offer of a 10 per cent increment in transport fares, saying it will collapse their businesses.
After an initial 30% proposed increase in the fares, the Coalition later reduced the rate to 20%; however, the government offered 10%. As a result, the meeting with the government on Tuesday to deliberate on the adjustment ended inconclusively.
According to the Head of Communications for the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU), Abass Imoro, the meeting was postponed because the commercial drivers were unwilling to accept the offer government made.
“Government, right from day one, was offering 10% which was not comfortable to us. We were trying to convince them to accept it [30 because our industry is collapsing but they were at the same 10% so we asked for postponement.”data:
“They said we should look at the current economic situation in the country; but whose fault is it that if we come up with that, we are going to create more hardship? That was why we opted for scrapping of some taxes and levies which they did not heed,”
Abass Imoro added that “if they did listen to us, we wouldn’t have come up with any upward adjustment…since that hasn’t materialised, we have no option than to make sure that we work and also make our living out of the work we are doing.”
This comes in the wake of concerns that prices of petroleum products will witness some significant increase today.
Over the past few weeks, there have been a consistent increase in the price of fuel at the pumps, a situation many drivers have described as insensitive.
According to the concerned drivers, the increments affect their profit margins leading to hardship in their individual livelihoods.
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