Ashanti regional drivers justify reasons for making U- turn on initial strike decision

Correspondence from Ashanti region

After failing to go by their decision to go on strike, some drivers in the Ashanti region have justified the abrupt u-turn.

A visit to most lorry terminals in areas such as Akyeamfour, Asafo PROTOA station, Asafo VIP and Regional GPRTU headquarters' lorry terminal, by GhanaWeb's Nana Peprah, saw most of these drivers busily loading passengers to their respective

Read full article.destinations despite an earlier decision to go on strike.

Some of these drivers speaking to GhanaWeb said they decided to call off the strike after they realized most of their colleague drivers were defying the orders.

Some also said their leadership had informed them to rescind their decision to go on strike since there was a supposed meeting between the union executives and the government.

Joseph Mensah, the Ashanti regional branch chairman of the PROTOA, speaking to this reporter said though they decided to join the strike, they had to call it off after the transport ministry and the Chief of Staff, Frema Osei-Opare called on them to halt their decision and meet them for a very urgent discussion.

The Ashanti regional GPRTU Chairman, Sumaila Boakye, speaking to GhanaWeb disclosed that a plea from the national executive of the GPRTU led by Nana Brasiama, and other driver unions informed their decision to call off the strike for the time being.

He revealed that the information was able to reach the other drivers and the leadership of the other driver unions due to a quick collaboration, hence their uniform decision to halt the strike action.

"We always want peace. We think about our passengers and other consumers. When we decide to follow the government on how keeps increasing fuel prices, we would also keep increasing our transport fares. But that's not what we want now.
All that we want is for the government to reduce fuel prices for us so that we can all live in peace with our customers," He said.

Mr. Oware Boateng, Administrative Secretary of the Ashanti regional GPRTU, said they made a u-turn to wait on the government to do what their heart desire. He said the only thing they wanted to hear from the government is for it to reduce the numerous taxes added to fuel prices.