Deputy Communications Director of the New Patriotic Party in the Upper East Region, Johnson Ayine has blamed the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) for not regulating the transport sector well in the region and the country as whole.
According to him, the union has a responsibility to ensure that all transport operators under it comply by all the road regulations and also other good practices that will help the drivers under the union and passengers, to get to their destinations safely.
He blamed the GPRTU for allowing people to open and operate new lorry stations like churches and drinking bars in the region, and due to the increasing number of lorry stations the union is not able to regulate their activities as expected, thereby leading to some of the accidents that occur on the road.
“Now what do we see in this region; people are opening lorry stations like they open churches and drinking bars. You see someone working at a GPRTU station today and just tomorrow the person goes to open a new station. People do not have experience and yet because of money they go and open a station with just one car and just be traveling up and down with just one driver. He would not rest, just because there are passengers to pick.”
Mr. Ayine was speaking on the A1 Radio Daybreak Upper East show on Thursday February 4, 2021, where he reacted to last Wednesday accident at Buipe in the Savannah Region, which killed almost 20 persons believed to be from the Garu and Zebila Districts in the Upper East Region.
“If you watch the way they open the churches and bars in this region, the same way they open the lorry parks. You see them, because of selfish gains and profits, you see them, one driver one bus, he will go and come and wants to go again, just because of the money and they don’t even think about the fact that they are tired and also about the lives of the passengers.”
It is on record that from 2019 to 2021, the Garu district and its environs have lost over 100 people through road accidents involving buses that are either leaving the district or coming to the district with people from the area.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Ghana
