Everything rises and falls on leadership, says John Maxwell, and this saying seems truer today in the transportation sector as driver and transport unions take commuters to ransom.
Daily, one sees long queues at the bus terminals and bus stops, both in the morning when workers need to reach their workplaces early to start their daily chores and in the evening when they need to reach home early and have some good rest before setting off again the next day.
Journeys that should take just about 30 minutes end up taking more than two hours, mostly due to the unavailability of commuter buses to ferry commuters to and from their workplaces.
There is now the unconventional practice of most drivers on corridors such as Accra Central/Nkrumah Circle-to-Madina/Adenta/Dodowa/Oyarifa splitting these journeys into piecemeals in order to maximise their earnings from commuters.
For instance, Adenta Barrier to Accra Central is GH₵9, but the drivers would rather pretend they were only going to Madina Zongo Junction, where they charge GH₵5, and from there, some of them even split the journey again and terminate at Shaishie or 37 before doing the final lap to Accra Central or Nkrumah Circle.
This practice is also in vogue along the Circle-Kasoa and Circle Dome-Kwabenya corridors, leaving commuters at the mercy of these greedy transport operators.
Due to the hyper-profiteering tendency of these oligarchs in the transport sector, a journey that normally costs less than GH₵10 can now cost about GH₵20.
In some instances, although the buses claim they are ‘trotro’, meaning they pick up and drop off passengers at short intervals, some of them compel all passengers to pay the full fare for their final destination, even if they are only boarding off at a short distance.
Those like me, who won’t fall victim to such disgusting practices by the cartels in the transport sector, sometimes remain at bus stops till about 10 pm when “Good Samaritan” transporters come to their aid.
Meanwhile, it is the taxes of these same citizens that are used to develop the country, including road infrastructure on which the drivers ply their trade.
Leadership of the transport ministry
Amid all these, there seems to be no transport ministry in the country, because for this to be happening under this high-performing government, which has seen super-reductions in the prices of petroleum products, spare parts, and even vehicles, is quite ironic.
While transporters demonstrate such gross bad faith, Ghanaians, especially those working in cities where these challenges have emerged so suddenly, would have expected the Transport Ministry to take carefully thought-through steps to alleviate the plight of public transport users. But what do we hear?
Repeated and rehearsed promises, which are never delivered under a transport ministry that seems helpless and hapless.
Before the yuletide, when the pressure started building up with the queues developing at bus terminals and bus stops, the transport ministry, led by its minister, Joseph Bukari Nikpe, came out with a pledge to deploy buses, primarily leveraging idle STC coaches and Metro Mass Transit, on key Accra routes (Madina, Adenta, Achimota, Amasaman, Kasoa, and Tema) during peak evening hours (4:30 PM – 8:30 PM).
These promises, notwithstanding, there wasn’t and has not been any substantial easing of the situation, leaving commuters unamused.
The transportation sector is a very sensitive one, which no government must toy with.
But over the years, after the collapse of the previous OmniBus Service Authority (OSA) and the Citi Express/City Line Services, there has not been any sustainable state-run public transport service targeted at serving workers and low-income earners.
The Metro Mass Transit introduced by the John Kuffuor regime is now moribund, and the same as the Bus Rapid Transit with the Aayalolo buses introduced at the tail-end of John Mahama’s first tenure.
Indeed, the story of the Aayalolo buses leaves a lot to be desired, because they were never deployed to their fullest capacity to serve the needs for which they were dreamed up.
For years, under the previous regime, it took a public outcry to start deploying the Aayalolo buses, which were left packed at the new Achimota station, while the commuting public had no choice apart from the often ramshackle and rickety trotro buses on our streets, some of which one wonders how they were able to secure their roadworthy certificates.
Be that as it may, one would have thought that the transport ministry under the phenomenal John Mahama government would live up to the high standards set by the government. But unfortunately, the Bukari Nikpe-led ministry has become the weakest limb in this government.
Before the NPP government left power, orders were placed for at least 100 electric buses under an EV transportation programme. At least 10 of those buses were delivered (albeit for electoral campaign reasons), leaving at least 90 to be delivered.
But after being in office for at least 10 months, Nikpe told the media in December that his outfit was still in negotiations with the supplier to deliver the buses. If we were even buying an Airbus or a cargo ship, would it have taken us so long?
Recently, his deputy, Dorcas Affo-Toffey, made a post on Facebook, purporting that the government had procured some 350 buses for the MMT, with videos and photos showing the buses being given some colouring in Egypt.
The question is, how long would it take for those buses to arrive in the country?
Recently, a driver was seen telling a TV3 reporter in an interview that increasing the number of MMT buses would affect the businesses of commercial transport operators, but who cares? Every government must institute measures to relieve the plights of the majority of its people; that’s the least any elected government can do for the electorate.
Leaving commuters at the mercy of commercial transport owners is a betrayal of public trust. When people queue to elect governments, it is not for the government to abandon them in the middle of storms as oligarchs to take advantage of them.
But that’s what normally happens in Ghana.
It’s a known secret that NDC governments are mostly obsequious to the whims of transport unions, as witnessed with numerous, and in some cases, unjustified transport fare hikes between 2012 and 2016, and one is inclined to believe that transport operators may be blackmailing the government, through the transport ministry, to abandon any plan of increasing the fleets of state-owned transport services, especially those that operate in the cities.
It would be an unfortunate situation if the suspicion turns out to be the case. Earlier this week, when Deputy Agriculture Minister, affable John Setor Dumelo, wanted to support commuters with bus services, he had to fall on the EV buses, and the question that emerged was that had the government taken advantage of the full complement of 100 EV buses initially procured, would the situation not have been a bit better?
Can one imagine the impact if at least 50 EV buses were working on the various corridors in Accra, with the rest sent to Kumasi, Takoradi, Tamale and other regional capitals where commuters face similar challenges?
We complain of artificial shortages created by the transport unions: yes, that has been their modus operandi over the years, for which reason drivers bore some of the brunt when the 1979 revolution was launched.
If the state allows the monopoly of commercial transport operators to remain, they will continue to take commuters for a ride, and that is one sure way the government would start losing its popularity.
On the other hand, any government that takes the bull by the horn and intervenes effectively with an efficient public transportation system would become the toast of workers, market women, and low-income earners, not forgetting the jobs that would be created.
Mobility plays no mean role in productivity, for which reason transport and logistics have become an academic area of study in universities and professional schools.
The time to marshall all the power of the state to fix the problem within the transport sector is now, to ease the pressure on workers and boost productivity.
NB: And please, the balderdash of private transport operators seeking government support to operate us absolutely a no! no! who puts money where his mouth isn’t fed?
They are private business people and must know how to secure credit to run their businesses.
I recall how the Rawlings administration supported them with some hundreds of Toyota Hiace mini vans and Tata buses on loan, but some of them couldn’t pay back.
No, they should just seek credit from banks and insurance companies.
In fact, in some of the Francophone West African countries, insurance companies and banks support transport operators with loans and partnerships.
With that they would be compelled to repay. The government is not a development or commercial bank.
By Justice Lee Adoboe
