The Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) has emphatically stated that the union has no collaboration whatsoever with Zoomlion Ghana Limited for their upcoming Mandatory Towing Levy.
In a statement, the union said claims by Mr Bright Simons, Vice President of IMANI Ghana, on Wednesday 10 August, alleging that, the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) “has cut a deal with the waste management experts Zoomlion Ghana Limited to impose a towing insurance service on our members without a membership ballot” is “untrue”.
“The leadership of GPRTU wishes to inform the general public, Bright Simons and his likes that, the GPRTU has no such relationship with Zoomlion in connection with our life-saving innovative towing insurance policy which is aimed at bringing sanity in order to reduce road fatalities.
Indeed, we are aware that Zoomlion’s business is waste management and so our relationship with them is purely along the lines of waste collection. It is therefore unfortunate that Bright Simons will engineer such a wild allegation in an effort to spark an unnecessary uproar within our rank and file.” A portion of the statement said
Read the full statement below
RE: ZOOMLION IN CHARGE OF GPRTU MANDATORY TOWING LEVY –BRIGHT SIMON ALLEGES
Accra, 11th August, 2022, – We have read with disappointment a story published by www.ghanaweb.com and attributed to Mr. Bright Simons, Honorary Vice President of IMANI Ghana, on Wednesday 10th August, alleging that, the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) “has cut a deal with the waste management experts Zoomlion Ghana Limited to impose a towing insurance service on our members without a membership ballot”.
The leadership of GPRTU wishes to inform the general public, Bright Simons and his likes that, the GPRTU has no such relationship with Zoomlion in connection with our life-saving innovative towing insurance policy which is aimed at bringing sanity in order to reduce road fatalities. Indeed, we are aware that Zoomlion’s business is waste management and so our relationship with them is purely along the lines of waste collection. It is therefore unfortunate that Bright Simons will engineer such a wild allegation in an effort to spark an unnecessary uproar within our rank and file.
The Leadership of GPRTU has had broad consultations with our members across the nation and do not understand what Bright Simons meant by “membership ballot”. Over the years we have taken decisions that have kept us together as a union without acrimony. It is therefore unfortunate that a person of his stature would be motivated to put spanners in the wheels of a carefully thought-through policy which has been widely accepted by the membership of the GPRTU.
We wish to state for the record that between January and June 2022, the National Road Safety Commission has reported that 1,300 persons have been killed in road accidents in Ghana. These fatalities were associated with stationary and or broken down vehicles on the road as reported by the National Road Safety Authority. The report indicates that nearly 8,000 people sustained various degrees of injuries during the same period. This according to the report is even an improvement as compared to previous years.
These frightening statistics as put out by the National Road Safety Authority motivated the leadership of GPRTU to embark on this initiative to help reduce road carnage and protect road users. The GPRTU is poised and ready to implement the initiative with the Road Safety Management Services Limited and other stakeholders.
We have successfully launched an app to aid members to have access to towing vehicles and, the over 2.6 million vehicles operated by our members have agreed to subscribe to the initiative through the app with details of their vehicles.
One would have thought that a simple inquiry at the GPRTU regarding this matter would have settled and rendered the tweet and the brouhaha it has generated unnecessarily.
We call, therefore, for an unqualified apology and also a complete retraction from both Ghanaweb and Bright Simons on their false allegation to bring peace and further request their support for the successful implementation of the project for the safety of Ghanaian lives or we will advise ourselves.
Signed
GODFRED ABULBIRE
(GPRTU SECRETARY)
