Transport fares to go up next week following fuel price hikes

• Posted on July 18, 2013
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Road transport operators have served notice to passengers and commuters to get ready to pay higher transport fares. The pump price of petrol was yesterday increased by approximately 1.71%, Diesel by 1.27% and LPG by 6.18%.

Transport operators have however resolved not to increase fares until next week to enable them factor in other operational costs.This was after their meeting with government and other stakeholders yesterday
These increases are marginal, prompting suggestions that fares be maintained.

Transport operators have however resolved not to increase fares until next week to enable them factor in other operational costs because according to them, fares are not determined exclusively by fuel prices hikes. This was after their meeting with government and other stakeholders yesterday.

The General Secretary of the Ghana Road Transport Co-ordinating Council, Alhaji Aliu Baba tells JOY BUSINESS, it is about time transport fare increases were seen beyond the fixation on fuel prices as the only determining factor to rather include other cost factors in their operations.

“It has always been a tradition that any time there’s fuel price increases then there is anticipation of increase in transport fares. But fuel is only one of the components used in calculating the fare increases. We have other components like spare parts, lubricants, insurance, wages as well as levies like the Vehicle Income Tax.
So we deem it necessary to do an in-depth market survey to establish all these and work on and come it with reasonable fares” he said.

He however concedes that the fuel price hikes are rather marginal but explained their increasing operating cost has made it important for them to increase the fares.

“The 1.7% increment is rather insignificant. And the conventional agreement we have with government requires us to adjust transport fares only when the increases over a period of time the 5% mark and above. Adding the latest increase of 1.7% to previous ones would only give us about 4.7% which means we couldn’t call for an increase in fares but for the increases in other components” he explained.