Association supports towing services charge
The members of the Concern Long Journey Drivers Association of Ghana have expressed their support for the implementation of the towing services charge.
They therefore called on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to ignore the calls for the halt of the project and approve the recommendations of the Parliament Select Committee on Transport.
The support was declared in a statement signed jointly by Nana Yaw Nkwan, aka Mayaki, General Secretary and Mr Desmond Kofi Agbezude, Organiser of the Association respectively.
The statement said the union leaders of the Association were consulted by the Committee and all members agreed to support the towing services charge.
It said: “As long journey drivers, we are key stakeholders in the ongoing debate because we are mostly the victims of abandoned vehicles.
“It is very risky driving past abandoned vehicles, especially at night. We have lost many of our colleagues through accidents caused by abandoned vehicles and we believe the solution is the introduction of the towing services.”
The statement said some people were making the argument that we should pay to our insurance companies.
It said, that argument was untenable and did not rest well with us because the insurance companies do not have the capacity to rapidly move our broken down vehicles off the road in order to ensure safety for ourselves and other motorists.
The statement said: “Currently, it is such a herculean task getting insurance claims from our insurance providers and it takes months, how these same insurance providers can promise us that they can deliver quickly on this?”
It said the Association was well convinced that the company that has been given the contract to execute the project has the capacity to do so.
It said, however, “We are sending a strong message to them that if we pay, we will demand value for money and will not compromise on our demands. For us, it is about lives and safety of ourselves and our passengers and that is why we are supporting this initiative.”
“Politicians who are running around pretending to be speaking for us must desist from it,” the statement said.
Source: GNA