The Ghana Private Road Transport Union's (GPRTU) General Secretary, Mr Godfred Abulbire, has revealed that starting on October 29, 2022, its members will raise transportation costs by 19%.
He claims that the recent increases in fuel costs, along with the growing inflation and the present devaluation of the Cedi, are the causes of the surge.
In an interview, Mr Abulbire said that the union will later release a statement informing passengers of the most recent rate adjustments.
He said that following lengthy negotiations with President Akufo-Addo and other national transport companies, the Union had decided on the 19% increase.
Despite having a legal justification for charging more than the agreed 19%, Mr Abulbire claimed that his organization listened to the plea of President Akufo-Addo to revise their projected 49% rate.
"What we should have been asking adequately should have been around 49%. But looking at the economic situation, we had to come down to 25% and then even scale down to 20%, and then just yesterday the sector Minister came up with 16½%.
"After listening to the President, he said all that we’re saying are fact and that there’s nothing there that he’s not aware of. But looking at the situation, the moment fares go up, it affects a lot of things.
"And so as a father, the President was asking us to reconsider our decision and see if we could take the 16% offered by the Minister. But we said that was actually a problem… So we all agreed that we’ll take off 1% and we’ll accept 19%, and that’s how the meeting concluded.
"We said the 20% was just still a consideration… So we agreed and said we’ll waive off that 1%. Today we’ll be issuing out a communiqué and then it will take effect on Saturday coming 29th October 2022," the GPRTU General Secretary explained.