Over four hundred Ghanaian truck drivers detained in Niger have made fresh appeals to government to come to their rescue. The drivers, together with their goods-laden trucks were detained for the past three months for allegedly breaking road traffic regulations. Speaking to Joy News from Makolande in Niger on Friday, spokesperson for the distressed drivers, Nana Kwabena Kolerongo, lamented the hardships the drivers were going through and called on government to intervene. “The drivers have no chop money. The kind of hardships the driver’s and the mates are going through is really unbearable,” he narrated. He alleged the government of Niger imposed penalties on truck loads of sugar, rice and building materials for allegedly overloading their trucks. The overloaded trucks, according to the Nigerien authorities were destroying their road networks. “Formerly we were paying CFA40,000 but now government has instructed we pay not less than CFA1.5 million,” Kolerongo asserted. He claimed Nigerien agents who loaded the trucks at the Tema Harbour failed to inform them of the new regulations passed by the government. Even more repugnant, he insisted, is the continued detention of the trucks in spite of payments of penalties made by the owners of the various trucks. He said the government of Ghana has to intervene in order for them to off-load their trucks. Story by Nathan Gadugah