The Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Ghana has rubbished claims that it has signed a car towing contract with Waste Management giants, Zoomlion Ghana Limited.
Honorary Vice President of IMANI Africa, Bright Simons had alleged that Zoomlion had surreptitiously “cut a deal with the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) to impose a towing insurance service on all their members without a membership ballot”.
However, in a strongly-worded statement signed by the GPRTU Deputy General Secretary, Mr. Richard Yaw Amankwah in charge of Operations on behalf of the General Secretary, the country’s biggest drivers’ union described Bright Simons’ claim, which was carried by Ghanaweb as “ignorant and treacherous allegation”.
“The leadership of GPRTU wish to inform the general public, Bright Simons and his likes, that, we have no interaction with the company Zoomlion in connection with our life-saving innovation towing insurance and never will.
“Indeed, we are aware that Zoomlion’s business is waste management and so our connection with them is purely waste collection and nothing else. It is therefore unfortunate that Bright Simons will engineer such wild allegation in an effort to spark an unnecessary uproar within our rank and file as a result of bringing sanity to the Ghanaian road sector”, the statement added.
Read the full statement below:
RE: ZOOMLION IN CHARGE OF GPRTU MANDATORY TOWING LEVY – BRIGHT SIMON ALLEGES
We read with disdain and pain a story published by www.ghanaweb.com and attributed to Mr. Bright Simons, a Vice President of IMANI Ghana, on Wednesday 10th August, 2022 with the ignorant and treacherous allegation that, the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) has cut a deal with the waste management experts Zoomlion Ghana to impose a towing insurance service on our members without a membership ballot.
The leadership of GPRTU wish to inform the general public, Bright Simons and his likes, that, we have no interaction with the company Zoomlion in connection with our life-saving innovation towing insurance and never will. Indeed, we are aware that Zoomlion’s business is waste management and so our connection with them is purely waste collection and nothing else. It is therefore unfortunate that Bright Simons will engineer such wild allegation in an effort to spark an unnecessary uproar within our rank and file as a result of bringing sanity to the Ghanaian road sector.
We have done broad consultations among our members and we have the approval of the National Executive Council (NEC) and do not understand what Bright Simons meant by membership ballot. Over the years we have taking decisions that has kept our union together without membership ballot, it is therefore unfortunate that a well-meaning Ghanaian like him would want to stir the settled mud within our rank and file for his personal aggrandizement even when it is obvious we meant well for every Ghanaian.
We refer Bright Simons to a whopping 1,300 persons being killed in road accidents in Ghana between only January and June 2022 which are largely associated with stationary 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.
This has occasioned our well-intended proactive embarkation of this project to help reduce road carnage to save lives of the Ghanaian people knowing very well that our members are the most users of the road during the day and at night. We would have expected an appreciation from people like you who are supposedly well versed with issues around the world to urge us on a progressive adventure but regrettably that is not the case·
It is therefore, unfortunate that Bright Simons, who is not our member and does not own a commercial vehicle as far as we know is making himself a busy body in this matter. We are poised to implementing this initiative knowing how our members suffer on the road in times of breakdown or accident and nobody, not even Bright Simons’ million tweets and press conferences can stop us.
We have launched an app to aid our members easily get access to towing vehicles in times of need at anytime and anywhere and the over 2.6 million vehicles operated by our members shall subscribe to the initiative through the app with details of their vehicles. Due to our seriousness on this project, we shall not allow any driver to load from our GPRTU stations if they fail to subscribe.
It is instructive that, people like Bright Simons and the Ghanaweb must always enquire for further and better particulars about information they have before publication because GPRTU has no such deals cut with Zoomlion anywhere as alleged and whatever they have published has no iota of truth in it. We request the Ghanaian people to disregard it with condescension.
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.
