Fuel prices to go down further – transport council hints

The Ghana Road Transport Coordinating Council has disclosed a decision by the National Petroleum Authority to reduce prices of petroleum products further.

The council is therefore instructing its members to comply with a directive asking them to reduce transport fares by 5% in line with last month’s 10% fuel reduction by the NPA.

Many have argued that the 10% reduction by the regulator was woefully inadequate judging the drastic reduction of world crude prices to about 50%.

Some commercial drivers who spoke to Joy News say they will disregard the directive because the 10% was too small, coupled with the cost of spare parts which they argued has not gone down.

But the Ghana Road Transport Coordinating Council is unhappy their members have refused to comply with the directive.

General Secretary of the Council, Alhaji Aliu Baba told Joy FM’s Top Story Friday that drivers who fail to reduce the fares will have their cars seized and banned from their routes.

He insisted that “Some of these things thwart our efforts. Remember when we gave them (drivers) the 15% why were they rushing to increase the fares? Now we have been given much more assurance by the NPA there is another 10% in the pipeline. Which may follow soon…

In his opinion, if the drivers were in a rush to increase fares when fuel prices went high, they should be willing to reduce said fares now that there has been a reduction. He saw their reluctance as an affront to the Council.

“Do they want to tell us we don’t know what we are doing? Any driver who does not obey we will sanction him.”

However, Deputy Transport Minister, Joyce Bawa Mogtari was not forthright about a possible 10% further reduction in fuel prices as hinted by the Ghana Road Transport Coordinating Council.

She remarked: “There are some discussions going on presently about exactly what sort of reduction we should be anticipating. I have no prior knowledge and I am not privy to any such discussions but I know these things have come up.”

Meanwhile, General Secretary of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union, Stephen Okudzeto has insisted that the directive to reduce transport fares is binding and asked all drivers to obey.

He noted that the directive has been dispatched to all regional secretariats and confirmed that they have all received it.

He however appealed to passengers to exercise restraint assuring that latest by Monday the new fares should take effect.

Madam Bawa Mogtari and Mr. Okudzeto agreed that the reduction in fares has delayed, which they said was occasioned by the timing of the fuel reduction.

The fuel reduction came when the executives were on Christmas holidays and they were only able to compile the list of new fares yesterday, Mr. Okudzeto explained.