Some taxi drivers have raised concerns about Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s announcement that an initiative was underway to migrate commercial taxi drivers onto a ride-hailing app.

They explained that the conversion will be disadvantageous to their colleagues who have not had the opportunity to receive formal education and for that reason find it difficult to read.

“He must think of those who cannot read also because some of our drivers in fact, even when they have a text message on their phone, they can't even read. So those people, how is it going to think for them? One driver at the Adabraka taxi rank raised.

Another driver also stated that the initiative will adversely affect those who operate at taxi stations because they only get customers when people visit their stations to procure their services.

Although they acknowledged that the idea was a good initiative, they advised government to take these concerns they have raised into consideration before it is implemented.

On Wednesday, Dr Bawumia, while speaking at a conference at the Church of Pentecost Ghana indicated that taxi drivers will soon be able to operate like ride-hailing services.

“I'm happy to say that that work has now been completed. And in the next couple of months, we will be able to place our taxis at least in Greater Accra to start with, all on an Uber-like platform. And you'll be able to call them just like you call Ubers to your homes and all of that,” the Vice President disclosed.

He explained that the initiative came about as a result of complaints by some taxi drivers, that their businesses were on the verge of collapsing due to the rise of ride-hailing companies in the country.

Dr Bawumia added that this initiative is part of government’s effort to digitalise the operation of commercial drivers in the country.

Subsequently, he announced that processes were underway to digitalise public and private transport sectors in the country by the end of the year.