STC pays $700,000 to govt to defray loan for buses

The State Transport Company (STC) has presented $700,000 to the government as the first tranche payment for the 50 buses that the government bought for the company in October last year.

The Managing Director of the STC, Nana Akomea, told the Daily Graphic in Accra on Monday that STC was poised to pay a further $1 million to the government in March 2018.

He said the payment was made possible as a result of the revamping of the company’s operational strategy, saying: “STC is poised to dramatically improve revenue and meet all its obligations to the government and other creditors.”

The 50 buses were bought at a cost of $16 million and Nana Akomea said STC was committed to defraying all the cost within the repayment period agreed with the government.

The STC, which was formerly a vibrant state-owned public transport company, went down for years as a result of poor management and lack of capital injection.

Operational strategy

As part of the strategy, Nana Akomea said, STC was opening loading stations at transportation centres to attract more passengers.

For instance, he said, the company had opened a loading station at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, while plans were afoot to open one at Madina and another in Cape Coast.

Besides, he said, the company had rolled out an electronic weighing scale.

He said it would also introduce an electronic ticketing system on its buses by the end of this year.

Cost-cutting

Nana Akomea said the management had taken some cost-cutting measures, including salary rationalisation and the modification of some existing agreements with some private sector service providers.

He said when all the measures were fully implemented, it would generate more revenue for the company.

SSNIT?indebtedness

He said STC would also focus on repaying its indebtedness of about GH¢200 million to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).

He said the company would have a payment plan with SSNIT.

-Graphic

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ABOUT: Nana Kwesi Coomson

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An Entrepreneur, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Communications Executive and Philanthropist. Editor-in-Chief of www.233times.com. A Senior Journalist with Ghanaian Chronicle Newspaper. An alumnus of Adisadel College where he read General Arts. His first degree is in Bachelor of Arts - Political Science (major) and History (minor) from the University of Ghana. He holds MSc in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Energy with Public Relations (PR) from the Robert Gordon University in the United Kingdom. He is a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow who studied at Clark Atlanta University in USA on the Business and Entrepreneurship track.

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