15% hike in fares slows down business for taxi drivers as passengers protest

The 15% increment in transport fares in the country have sparked protest among some Ghanaians especially ‘trotro’ mates and passengers in the capital Accra.
The fare increment was announced in a statement co-signed by the National Chairman of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU), Kwame Kuma and the acting General Secretary of the Ghana Road Transport Coordinating Council (GRTCC), Andrew Kwesi Kwakye on Monday, April 3.

 

 

Some passengers have who shared their views with primenewsghana on the 15% increment of transport fares.

Samson Afordofe, described the situation as 'robbing Peter to pay Paul increase. You reduce the price of domestic flights which is mostly patronised by politicians and businessmen by 17% then you increase local transport that is patronised by majority of Ghanaians by 15%. God is watching'.

For Marylene Nomosuor, ‘this isn’t going to work, people are not going to agree, this morning we had several protests in the vehicle I took concerning this, a lot can’t complain because they voted for change, people are not happy’.

‘The increment of transport fares is a headache, what’s the justification in the increment? A trotro mate and passenger had to exchange blows this morning as a result of that’, another passenger Patrick Nambe added. 

‘It’s too much. Fares have already been expensive and now another increment. And it has already been increased about 3 in the past 6 months. Here lies the case, salaries are not on the increase but fuel and fares are increasing. How do we keep up then? Government should find a way of decreasing instead of increasing fuel for once", Karen Kpodo also lamented.

 

Meanwhile, our interactions with some commercial drivers indicate that business has slowed down business especially for those driving taxis as passengers protest the increment.

 

"The increment has slowed down business as the number of passengers I take for a day has reduced drastically today", a taxi driver plying the Osu to Airport route in Accra, Daniel Mensah Asare told our reporter.