20% Lorry Fare Upward Adjustment Unfair – GRTCC

Gen. Secretary of Ghana Road Transport Coordinating Council (GRTCC), Emmanuel Ohene Yeboah says even though the Ghana Road Transport Union is justified in their decision to increase transport fares, they erred in their approach. According to Ohene Yeboah, besides the 20% increment also being too high, the GPRTU had failed

to go through due process as has been done over the years before announcing their price increments. In this instance I think they erred. Since the 2001 this system of meeting with the Transport Ministry and also the other stakeholders has been the mode of increasing our fares. The GPRTU should come and meet, when we meet it

means even with that 20 percent we can find a better way of bringing it out to the public so that it also doesn’t create confusion. He explained that even though the price increment was justified, the 20% increment was a bit too much and the price increment could have been brought down to 15%. He said the 20% increment was

unfair. There is a justification for the increase, there’s no two ways about that. But the approach is what we’re complaining about. I am saying that if there is a standing convention that we have used over the years and it is working for us. And nobody has had a cause to complain about the convention itself, why would you get away

from the convention without reference to other parties on the same platform? I don’t think it is fair. Why am I saying so? You see the fuel constitutes about a third of the total operational cost. Abbas was saying that when we do the calculation, we add spare parts and all that. Yes we do that, but we also only do that for once a year,

sometimes twice a year. We do that at the beginning of a year, and maybe midyear and maybe the close of the year, that’s when we sue spare parts as a component. But the actual fare increase is based on the third. So a third gives you about 15 or 17%. So definitely, 20% is on the higher side, he explained.