The Ghana Road Transport Coordinating Council (GRTCC) says there has not been any meeting with the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) to agree on a 20% increase in transport fares.

General Secretary of GRTCC, Emmanuel Ohene Yeboah in an interview with JoyNews explained that the usual convention has been for the Union to meet with the GRTCC and the Transport Ministry before any upward adjustment in transport fares is announced.

He told JoyNews that the Council is not aware of the 20% increase in transport fares.

“As a party, whenever there is a fuel increase and its corresponding increase in transport fares, the operators, that is the GPRTU and the GRTCC will meet together with the Ministry of Transport to set the motion for discussion and agree on the percentage increase. But as I speak to you, there is no meeting of such nature, so for anybody to come out with a definite statement that we are going to increase by this percentage at this time, I don’t know,” he said.

He added, “I don’t know what is so special that we depart from the convention…As far as we are concerned from the Council, we haven’t taken any decision like that.”

He said the Council is yet to meet with the Transport Ministry and the GPRTU to decide on the percentage of increment.

“We will wait till we meet them. A letter was sent to them, I remember we sent a letter to them earlier on and we couldn’t have the meeting. So we send the reminder to them on Wednesday. I have had an indication from the Chief Director that the Transport Minister is not available, so he will speak to me by the close of the day to give me a definite date for the meeting. Until that is done, we don’t know how we can come out and say we are increasing prices by this percentage,” he noted.

Earlier, the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) revealed that it will adjust transportation fares upwards by 20%.

According to the Union, the increment will take effect from Friday, May 13.

The decision, GPRTU explained, is due to the hike in fuel prices over the last few months.

In April, the Union asked the government to scrap some taxes on petroleum products to cushion drivers and commuters, but President Akufo-Addo rejected the proposal.

The President, speaking at this year's May Day parade, said it will cost the nation GH¢4 billion in revenue if that happens.

Reacting in an interview on an Accra-based Citi News, the Industrial Relations Officer for GPRTU, Abass Imoro, said efforts to reach the Ministry have proved futile.

“We have been forced to make a decision. We were thinking of being sympathetic. We never wanted to take this decision, but government has not cooperated with us.

“Fuel prices keep shooting up, we wrote to the Transport Minister about our plans to increase transport fares, but we received no feedback. We are thus going to take a decision that will help us as well. We will announce the new prices by next Friday.”