Cabbies flout AMA’s uniform directive

Taxi drivers in the Accra metropolis have flouted a directive by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly to wear special uniforms with effect from Monday.

The Ghanaian Times said it search in parts of the metropolis on Monday showed none of the taxi drivers were in the sea blue shirts and blue-black trousers prescribed by the assembly.

The special identification number that was to be embossed on all taxi cabs after payment of ¢250,000 was also missing from the taxis.

The uniform and the car identification numbers were to make the cabbies easily identifiable especially during the country's Golden Jubilee celebration, according to the AMA.

The Public Relations Department of the AMA in a statement issued on Friday said: “From Monday, February 5, 2007, taxi drivers will be expected to report at the AMA office where they will pay 250,000 cedis for an embossment as well as the yearly taxi operating license fee 35,000 cedis.

“All drivers who report at the AMA head office for the payment of the embossment fee must be in the prescribed uniform of sea blue shirt and blue black trousers,” the statement further directed.

The President of the Adabraka Cooperative Transport Society, Edward Hoffman, said AMA officials were at their place last month to brief the association's members on the directive but did not tell them where and when to go to register.

“As at now, we are waiting for the AMA to tell us where to go and register,” he added.

Mr Hoffman said, the ¢250,000 embossment fee the taxi drivers were expected to pay was too much and needed to be reconsidered.

He said if the exercise was to succeed, then a lot was expected from the AMA in terms of information flow to the taxi drivers.

Source: The Ghanaian Times