GPRTU vows to increase fares by next week if no consensus is reached
The leadership of the Ghana Private Road and Transport Union (GPRTU) is expected to meet with the Transport Ministry later today on the proposed increment in transport fares by the GPRTU.
The union’s communications team member, Samuel Amoah in an interview on Joy News’ The Pulse, Thursday said the meeting was supposed to have happened earlier today but has been postponed to 4 pm.
He said the Union is looking forward to not less than a 20 percent increment in transport fares.
According to Samuel Amoah, until government reduces fuel prices, Ghanaians would have to bear with transport operators on the fare increment.
“Negotiations and meetings are ongoing as I am speaking to you now, the leadership is meeting the Transport Minister today, the meeting is supposed to come on between 4pm and 5pm…we are still pushing ahead that where the petroleum product is now, we have to still go by the increment we are looking for…What we are looking for is the reduction of the petroleum products,” he stated.
Mr. Amoah stressed that although the Union is not comfortable with increasing transport fares without government approval, it will be forced to increase fares by next week if no agreement is reached by the end of today’s meeting.
“We have given ourselves up to next week. By next week at least we have to hear something or else what will happen is then I think we have to come out on our own like it happened recently that was way back in May when we came out with our own 20 percent without the approval of the government and that is something we do not want to do,” he added.
On Wednesday, a consultative meeting between government and transport unions to negotiate increment in fares ended inconclusively.
This follows a disagreement between the Transport Ministry and the Ghana Road Transport Coordinating Council (GRTCC) after the latter proposed a 26% increment in fares.
“Our cumulative increment was somewhere around 26%. Because there was a little dispute between that ours and the Ministry, we had to go back and do it again. The Ministry was not offering anything as it were.
“Like we said, they also have to take their data from the NPA to confirm that we have the one that we have. After we’ve all agreed on what the data is, that is when we would do the calculation for the increase,” General Secretary of GRTCC, Emmanuel Ohene Yeboah told JoyNews.
The meeting was rescheduled for Thursday, September 22 to allow the parties to reconsider their proposals, with the hope that they can reach a consensus.
Source: Ghana News
