AMA’s New-Bye Belongs To The Jungle – GPRTU

A new directive by Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) set to be fully enforced in April of this year, requesting drivers to help enforce the bye-law banning commuters from buying from street hawkers or face arrest for non-compliance is already being met with resistance by some drivers.

The bye-law also obliges all drivers to ensure that no passenger buys anything when sitting in their vehicles or drop the waste it in a litter bin placed inside the vehicle.

The AMA says the enforcement has come about due to the assembly’s decision to decongest the city which had been choked by the activities of hawkers who sell at places and pavements earmarked for pedestrians and vehicles.

But Mr. Robert Sabah, Vice Chairman of the Ghana Private Road and Transport Union (GPRTU) says it is a ‘Jungle Law’.

In an interview on Peace news at 12, he believes drivers are being harassed needlessly and questions why a driver should be arrested for a passenger’s offence. According to him, there is no way a driver can determine when a passenger intends buying something from a hawker.

“How can you say that you will arrest the drivers? Drivers are not prophets neither are they sooth-sayers for them to determine who is buying in the car. As for this law it belongs to the jungle. It needs to be reviewed because it will not work in a human institution.

According to him, the drivers are doing their best by informing passengers not to dispose of waste by throwing them out of a moving vehicle, however, they cannot restrict them from buying and moreover, not everyone will comply because “in every house there is a Mensah (bad nut).”