Draconian Towing Tax Rankles Drivers… Demand Review Of Multi-Billion Cedi Contract

Statistically, it has been proven that the road accidents-related death rate in Ghana is next to that of the dreaded Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

According to the Ghana Aids Commission, 12,635 HIV deaths were recorded in the country in 2015, whilst 2,000 people die every year from road accidents.

It is to reverse this alarming trend that the previous government, through the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), decided to introduce measures to curb road accidents.

The Chronicle sources at the Ministry of Transport indicate that faulty vehicles abandoned on the shoulders, or sometimes in the middle of the road, is one of the major factors that causes road crashes.

This is the reason why the NRSC, through the Attorney General, drafted legislation which was subsequently passed by the immediate past Parliament, sometime last year, to levy all vehicles specific amounts of money (depending on the type) to contract individuals outside the government to tow away all broken down vehicles on our roads.

Unfortunately, the decision to award the towing contract to just one company, Road Safety Management Services Limited (RSMSL), and the amount being imposed on each vehicle as a levy, has set tongues wagging.

Per the contract signed with RSMSL, commercial vehicles and taxis will be under obligation to pay GH¢40, mini buses GH¢80, and heavy duty trucks between GH¢80 and GH¢200 annually, depending on the tonnage. Non-commercial vehicles will also pay a flat rate of GH¢20.

The Road Safety Management Services Limited, which would execute the contract for 20 solid years, with no clear-cut punishment provision in case it reneges, would also have a central pool where all the towed cars would be sent to.

The owner of a broken-down vehicle would not be required to pay for the towing service, but if he or she wants the car to be repaired at the central pool, which also serves as a workshop, he or she will bear the cost of the repairs.

A Deputy Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, is promising that the government would look at the concerns being raised by Ghanaians over the contract, and see if it could possibly be reviewed.

According to him, a meeting to that effect had already started, and called on the agitating drivers and car owners to calm down.

The NRSC is, however, stoutly defending the new tax, arguing that road crashes connected to abandoned vehicles, trucks and cars constitute about 21% of road accident deaths in 2016 alone. The NRSC told Joy FM that road accidents alone cost Ghana 1.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually. Also, almost 60 percent of crash victims are within the productive bracket of 18 and 55 years, a situation which impacts the Ghanaian economy negatively, hence the introduction of the levy.

But, some of the vehicle and car owners interviewed by The Chronicle argued that though the service is a laudable idea, the manner the law backing its implementation has been crafted is not the best and must be reviewed.

According to them, an ideal situation for the implementation of the law is for the private company, which has won the contract, to levy those whose vehicles would be towed from the road to safety.

According to them, insurance premiums have already been increased by over three hundred per cent, and that to impose another levy for towing services, when not all vehicles would be towed in a given year is complete cheating.

They also wondered what would happen to car towing companies which are already in existence, now that one company is going to monopolise the business.

The Chronicle checks have revealed that as many as nine companies put in bids, but only Road Safety Management Services Limited (RSMSL) was chosen to run the service throughout the country.

Assuming each vehicle is paying, on average, GH¢100 per annum, and with the total number of cars in the country around two million, the company would be raking in GH¢200,000,000 annually.

Out of this figure – 85% would go to RSMSL, with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) and the Police Service getting 5% each, with the remaining 5% being split equally between the Ministry of Finance and NRSC.

The Vice President of Imani, Kofi Bentil, argued on Joy FM's Newsfile programme over the weekend, that this money could have gone to the district assemblies if they were allowed to implement the programme.

To him, the various assemblies have the capacity to execute the contract in their respective areas, instead of handing it over to a private company.

The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), the renowned Ghanaian luminary, H. Kwesi Prempeh, Road Transport Consultant, Cecil Garbrah, and a host of others have condemned the new tow law.

The Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU), however, remains unruffled. Its National Vice Chairman, Robert Sarbah, is arguing that though the directive would impact on the cost of their operations, they were not disturbed, because it is the commuters who will feel the impact.

“This will also impact on the cost of our operation, and we will pass it on to the passengers. We will not feel it much,” Mr. Sarbah argued on Joy FM.

He, however, pleaded that: “If for anything at all, the fees must be reduced by 50 percent.

 

By Emmanuel Akli