KMA to sanitize transportation system in Kumasi

The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) has held a meeting with stakeholders in the transportation sector to find a more efficient way of regulating activities of various transport unions.

The meeting was necessitated by the unregulated activities of the majority of the transport unions, terminals and lorry stations in the metropolis.

Mr. Osei Asibey Antwi, the Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), bemoaned the virtual take-over of pavements and other unauthorized areas by those transport unions, and insisted that the Assembly would not tolerate such acts of indiscipline.

He cited the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) where the frontage of the referral facility had been illegally converted into a lorry terminal to the inconvenience of patients and hospital authorities.

In addition, these transport unions had also demonstrated sheer impudence for motor traffic regulations causing uneasiness at the lorry terminals.

The meeting amongst others was also to deliberate on the summary report and recommendations of the nine-member committee set up by the Assembly to find a lasting solution to the growing indiscipline amongst transport unions at the various terminals.

The committee was tasked to do feasibility study at the various lorry terminals in the metropolis and suggest measures to bringing sanity in the operations of the transport unions.

Members of the committee were drawn from the Police MTTD, the Ghana Unified Transport Committee which compose of all transport unions the metropolis, as well as the KMA Transport Sub-committee and the Ghana Road Coordinating Council.

Mr. Asibey Antwi assured that the KMA was committed to implementating recommendations by the nine-member committee to sanitize the transportation system in the metropolis.

Mr. Kwaku Duah, Chairman of the Committee, noted that their observation in the cause of the study had established that the problems faced currently in the transport sector  in the  Metropolis has been caused by both the Unions as players and the Transport Department of KMA as regulators, committee members attest to the fact based on the findings. Therefore, Policy reforms in the sector need to be directed towards strengthening the institutional and regulatory framework in which public transportation thrives and to develop the requisite human resource and also technical know-how necessary for sustenance.