General News of Monday, 7 August 2017
Source: kasapafmonline.com
2017-08-07
Founder of the Liberal Party of Ghana, Kofi Akpaloo
Founder of the Liberal Party of Ghana, Kofi Akpaloo, is urging Ghanaians to stop politicising the implementation of the towing levy.
He wants the general public to fully support the policy since its benefits are enormous.
According to him, if one analyzes the benefits the implementation of the towing levy will bring to Ghana, there is no justification to criticise it, stressing that saving life outweighs any other interest as far as the policy is concerned.
Using his family of ten people who lost their lives when their 207 Mercedes Benz mini bus run into a broken down articulator truck on the Fosu-Bekwai stretch of the road, he said if there was a system or policy for the broken down truck to have been towed off the road, the lives of his family members would have been saved.
“We should stop the politics over the implementation of the towing levy. This is a good policy and it is going to help all of us. No one can quantify the benefits of this towing levy. Life is precious than the GH¢20, GH¢10, and in some cases GH¢200 that they are going to charge. We have to embrace this levy,” he noted.
Mr. Akpaloo made this observation when interacting with Kwaku Owusu Adjei on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa FM on Monday.
Ghana is on the verge of implementing the Road Traffic Regulation, 2012 (L. I. 2180) where motorists are required to pay a mandatory towing levy to cover the cost of towing services of disbanded and or broken down vehicles from the various road networks in the country.
But the implementation of the policy has met stiff opposition from a cross section of the general public.
Although the critics have wholeheartedly embraced the policy, they nonetheless believe that there are some issues which if not addressed will not give consumers value for money.
For instance, the Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), Duncan Amoah, says there currently exist very good road safety laws which when enforced will lead to much safer roads for all and that simply imposing a mandatory levy on all vehicle owners cannot be the solution to the carnage on the roads.
“It is high time the state accepts responsibility for failing to apply the needed resources in dealing with the actual causes of road accidents on our roads. Most of these accidents are largely preventive, and that half the problem if not virtually all of it will be solved when appropriate measures are taken. It must be noted that one does not need to be a civil engineer to understand that poor road conditions such as steep pot holes, lack of adequate and lack of appropriate road indicators or signs, street lights, missing guardrails, erosion, and faulty traffic lights design are some of the major causes of road accidents in Ghana,” he noted.
But Mr. Akpaloo still insists that despite the concerns raised against the implementation of the towing levy, Ghanaians must give way for the policy to take off.
