Taxi drivers who ply their trade between Techiman and Sunyani are up in arms with their local authority for relocating them to a place they described is negatively affecting their business.
The drivers who claim they’ve been handed a raw deal took to the streets on Wednesday to demonstrate against the Municipal Assembly.
Clad in red arm band and chanted war songs, the drivers demanded for their relocation to their former station.
The Municipal Chief Executive for Techiman, Philip Oppong Amponsah, who was not enthused about the action of the demonstrators tried to intervene but was met with stiff opposition.
The demonstrators seeing the MCE as the one behind their woes started ranting at him.
Mr. Amponsah having realized his life was under threat quickly sneaked to his vehicle and decided to speed off.
But this did not scare off the demonstrators.
Eye witnesses say the drivers instead, followed and beat the MCE with sachet water until the Techiman Divisional Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Twumasi Ankrah, came to his rescue.
Commander Ankrah, however, in an interview with Kasapafmonline.com said the situation wasn’t volatile as being speculated by some people.
He further told this website that there wasn’t any demonstration in the area neither was the MCE beaten with sachet water by the aggrieved drivers.
“The drivers were relocated to a temporal place for the old taxi rank to be renovated. The Assembly promised to the renovation works in three months and brings them back but it has well been over a year. When the President came here, the drivers thought it has been commissioned and so were expecting the Assembly to call them back but that did not happen”.
“And so last week through to this week, they haven’t heard anything from the Assembly. And from where they are, because of the dusty nature of the place, they are losing their passengers. So, they decided that since their old place has been renovated they will go there and when it is time for commissioning, they will leave the place”.
“So, they went there this morning because today Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are market days. But the Assembly sent some guards to prevent them from doing business but the drivers resisted the guards and it thing turned into a different thing. So, they were not demonstrating just that there was a misunderstanding between the drivers and the Assembly guards that created a scene”, he explained.
He added “the MCE never stepped there. Initially the MCE sent some military personnel to sack the drivers but because they used some amount of force, the people used sachet water to drive them away”.
According to the Divisional Police Commander, the drivers have been given up to Tuesday, May 10, 2016 to return to the old station after it has been commissioned.
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