‘We will be utterly disappointed if any commercial transport operator fails to reduce fares’ – COPEC

The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) has promised to take steps towards ensuring that transport fares are reduced to ease the financial burdens on the public.

This follows the appreciation of the Ghana cedi against the US dollar by a margin of 6.60%.

The performance recorded will impact positively other trading commodities including fuel prices at pumps which are expected to go down in the upcoming pricing window, this Friday, December 16, 2022.

But according to the Ghana Private Road Transport Union, despite the decrement in fuel prices, the fares which have also been on the rise may not see a decrease, depending on other components that account for the increment in the fares.

The General Secretary of the Union, Godfred Abulbire noted in an interview granted Citi FM that they will only reduce their prices after they have assessed the other components that affect their pricing.

These components include the cost of the dollar which is a major trading currency and the price of spare parts among others which account for the cost value of a commercial car and determine together with the fuel prices the cost of transportation.

But in his reaction, Mr Duncan Amoah, the Executive Secretary of COPEC said his outfit would be “utterly disappointed if any of the commercial transport operators from Friday continue to make the excuses they have made in recent times that they are not going to reduce transport fares.”

He thus assured in the interview monitored by Angelonline.com.gh that COPEC will take steps to make sure that the general public benefits equally from the reduction that the pumps are expected to make in the coming pricing window.

“This will not just be a radio conversation; we will take steps equally to also approach them to explain to them the need to drop I mean the very high transport fares that Ghanaians are currently being charged because if you have fuel has done almost 30, 40 per cent drop it doesn’t bode well or in the line of good faith and proper public interest argument for any of the transport operators including VVIP…

“We will be approaching all of them with the expectation that at least the kind of relief that the cedi is bringing to the economy currently, the kind of relief that international benchmarks are also throwing at consumers the commercial transport operators will not go to sleep and make excuses, and that they reduce transport fares forthwith because there will be no justification for them to continue to charge the sort of high fares we are seeing.”