Some commercial drivers in Accra are threatening to protest against the Police and an Accra Metropolitan Assembly taskforce, who they say have been harassing and terrorizing them in their business.
According to the drivers who form the Ghana Drivers and Car Owners Association, they will no longer sit down for the Police and the taskforce in charge of clamping and towing unauthorized parking vehicles, from frustrating their business.
They have consequently given them two weeks to cease all forms of harassment and intimidation or face their wrath.
“We don’t think the taskforce by the city authorities are well trained because they don’t even know that the bus stops are created for picking and dropping of passengers. When we stop for people to alight and some also board, then they clamp your car and charge you, why are they harassing us like this,” Francis Appiah, Public Relations Officer of the group claimed.
He explained that the situation affecting their business, something that makes some of the drivers to engage in fisticuffs with the taskforce.
Mr Appiah said this sometimes cause the drivers to lose the day’s income because they have to spend the entire day in Police station or being clamped the whole day.
The drivers want the AMA authorities to take a second look at the taskforce, claiming some members of the taskforce engage in “extortion of money from the drivers on daily basis and this is a huge concern for us.”
He said it was a matter of concern “because anybody at all can wear any uniform without tags to perpetrate fraud on drivers in the name of AMA taskforce.”
The drivers have therefore appealed to the Minister of Transport to as a matter of urgency, ensure that they go about their daily activities without any ‘unwarranted’ harassments, and arrests, which the group alleged are sometimes condoned by the Police MTTD.
Meanwhile, Head of Education Research and Training at the Motor Transport and Traffic Department (MTTD), DSP Alexander Obeng has denied the claim some MTTD personnel condone the unprofessional acts of the taskforce.
He underscored the need for the city authorities to educate members of their taskforce their mandate and rules of engagements
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