Transport Minister Joseph Bukari Nikpe says the government introduced the new rush-hour bus service because many commercial drivers have abandoned their terminals in order to charge unapproved fares, leaving thousands of commuters stranded every evening.

Speaking on the Joy FM Super Morning Show on Thursday, December 12, the Minister said the Ministry’s checks over recent weeks revealed widespread indiscipline among drivers, especially during peak hours.

“We noticed of late that many of our commuters after the close of work are stranded either in the stations, terminals, or along the routes. Simply because some vehicles are not available to convey them to their various destinations,” he said.

He explained that the Ministry conducted its own internal assessment and found that several drivers have deliberately left their designated stations to operate illegally along the main corridors.

“At peak times, most of the drivers will withdraw from the stations or the terminals and get onto the routes and charge unapproved fees. This has been the motivation that they leave the terminal not to be controlled and do whatever they want,” he said.

According to the Minister, some drivers also change routes mid-journey to demand extra payments from passengers.

“Drivers will pick up passengers and get to the motorway and tell them you’re not going to Ashaiman again. And if they want you to go to Ashaiman, they have to pay extra. It is just a way to extort more money from them,” he added.

To resolve the situation quickly, the Ministry deployed buses along four major corridors. Each corridor currently has a minimum of eight buses.

Mr Nikpe said the decision was taken before full data analysis because the Ministry did not want to delay action while commuters continued to suffer.

“This is an emergency deployment to salvage the situation. We will not go around to start counting them before we bring vehicles to convey them once we see them,” he explained.

The Minister also revealed that many of the buses being used for the intervention come from the Intercity STC fleet, which often has vehicles idle for several hours between scheduled trips.

“Most of their vehicles return and are not scheduled to take the next trip. They stay at the station for maybe two, three, four, five, six hours. So we are mopping up all those vehicles, deploying them at peak time. After that, after 8 or 8:30, they get back to the terminal and are prepared for the following day’s work,” he said.

The Minister said on Wednesday, 15 air-conditioned buses, 9 mini coastal buses, and 9 dense-bus types were deployed, and more are expected to be deployed today.

To further address the misconduct by drivers, the Ministry has set up an 11-member task force which will submit its findings within two days.

The team is expected to identify drivers and vehicles that have abandoned terminals, as well as those collecting unapproved fares.

“Vehicles are no longer in the stations as they used to be. They are all out. Why are they out? The task force has all these areas to look at and come out with the names and numbers of these vehicles and find out which of them are on the routes and collecting unapproved fares.”