<<Print>>

The Ghana Road Transport Coordinating Council (GRTCC) has asked all drivers to stick to the existing transport fares and remain calm while the council, together with the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU), engages the government on approved transport fares that will be mutually beneficial to all parties.
The General Secretary of GRTCC, Mr Emmanuel Ohene Yeboah, told the Daily Graphic that the council and GPRTU were doing due diligence in ongoing discussions with the mandated state institutions to ensure that new transport fares reflected all ingredients in the cost build-up in the transport sector.

"Many drivers and some people have said we are delaying in announcing new transport fares, but that is not the case. We have established protocols for determining transport fares, and since 2004 or so, the GRTCC, GPRTU and the ministries of Energy and Transport have followed this process to determine fares that will be fair to transport operators and the travelling public.

“We are doing all things possible to conclude the process in the coming days,” he said.

The protocol

He said the established protocol involved the GRTCC and GPRTU going to the negotiation table with knowledge of fuel prices, cost of spare parts, payment of drivers, regulatory charges and tax regimes, which all added up to the cost build-up in the transport sector and help to determine transport fares.


"Fuel prices only constitute 30 per cent of the cost of operation in the transport sector, so if we rush to use only increment in fuel prices as our basis for demanding transport fare increment, we will not get the appropriate fares," he said.

Mr Yeboah added that the two transport unions had sent a proposal to the Ministry of Finance to extend the tax exemptions that were made in the Income Tax (Amendment) Act, 2021, Act 1066, as announced in the 2021 Budget for some categories of vehicles.

The Act amended the sixth schedule to the Income Tax Act, 2015, (Act 896), to provide for a rebate for selected industrial sectors, suspend quarterly instalment payments by specified self-employed persons and owners of commercial vehicles and for related matters.

The Act provides that the rate of income tax payable on the estimated chargeable income of some sectors for the second, third and fourth quarters of 2021 shall be 70 per cent of the applicable rate.

The category of vehicles that were covered by that intervention included taxis, commercial passenger buses with a capacity of 15 and above.

Extension

However, Mr Yeboah said given that all categories of transport sector operators were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, it was important for the government to extend that intervention to all categories of vehicles.

"We are waiting on the Ministry of Finance to respond to the proposal so that we can factor the response into the determination of transport fares," he added.

He described the 20 per cent increment in transport fares announced by the Concerned Drivers Union as an act of lawlessness that must not be allowed to hold.

"These so-called unions who announced this increment in fares are non-existent. They are disgruntled members who lost elections and go about doing these things," he said.

Background

The government introduced the Sanitation and Pollution Levy of 10p per litre on petroleum products and increased the Energy Sector Levy Act (ESLA) by 20p.

The taxes took effect on May 1, 2021, alongside the National Petroleum Authority increased margins on the petroleum price build-up by 17p.

This was, however, reduced to nine pesewas after resistance to the increment by members of the public and some energy sector think tanks.

Following that increment on fuel products, the prices of fuel increased at the pump.

Consequently, some transport unions that are not part of GRTCC increased transport fares by 20 per cent.

The unions are the Ghana Committed Drivers Association, International Drivers Road Transport Union, Truth Drivers Union, and Concerned Drivers Association.

In a statement signed by their leadership on March 17, 2021, they said the increase had become necessary in view of the number of taxes on fuel announced by the government in the 2021 Budget and subsequently approved by Parliament.