When critics of gender equality hit the roofs and directed their ire against the United Nations on the false notion that majority of women did not think that they would be equal with men, the UN silenced and derided the calls, by maintaining that even if majority of women conceded subserviency to men by working against themselves, women, that did not nullify the need for the rest of the world to rally behind women.
It was said that the saddest thing is for any person to work against their own interest and welfare.
That called for the mobilisation of support from others to protect such groups, who render themselves vulnerable to exploitation.
Therefore, at the time, the world owed women greater responsibility to fight the prejudices rooted in culture and mores, despite the fact that some of them did not appreciate the calls for equality which were not negotiable.
Perhaps that is what is happening within drivers’ unions and transport associations, where leadership is betraying the rank and file and exposing them to revolutionary measures and impunity instead of appealing to their conscience.
The Ghana Private Road Transport Union, unintentionally but irrationally, in trying to seek the interest and welfare of the public, in the face of difficulties confronting the transport industry, has exposed its members, drivers, into public ridicule and contempt enabling national security operatives and District Chief executives to descend on them with reckless physical and violent attacks on drivers, who are charging higher fares by splintering and balkanising routes into sections.
Last year, when transport fares were reduced by 15 per cent, the government introduced the GHS1 levy per litre on petrol and diesel.
The leadership of the GPRTU threatened to increase the fares, but were prevailed upon by the government to suspend the decision.
Thereafter, some transport groups resolved to proceed with the increased fares.
But their leadership took the lead in condemning such drivers for taking the law into their own hands, without reference to any provision in the statutes or practice in common law.
This position emboldened agencies of the Executive, particularly at the level of chief executive, in the assemblies to harass drivers, threatening to prosecute them and resorting to revolutionary measures to silence them.
And because it favours commuters, the public has inelegantly approved such ultra vires measures to be applied.
Difficulties
In the past few weeks, passengers have encountered difficulties in getting transport for their journeys.
Crowds remain at stations for long.
The result, the disingenuous methods of drivers in fleecing commuters.
The response from the government, to deal with the weaknesses in the sector is the concomitant resort to revolutionary measures to tame the drivers, including physically forcing them to pick passengers and arresting those who refuse to comply, ending in seizure or impounding of vehicles, no matter how long, without applying the rule of law and due process.
The 1992 Constitution is clear about what constitutes a crime or offence.
It provides under Article 19(11) that,” No person shall be convicted of a criminal offence unless the offence is defined and the penalty for it is prescribed in a written law”.
The guilt or otherwise is expected to be established in a court of competent jurisdiction, not by a task force established by the assembly, nor the fiat of a district chief executive.
Instead of open and transparent discussions and negotiation, we see the application sometimes of brute force, physical and verbal assault and attack on drivers without a legal basis.
GPRTU
With all due respect to the leadership of the GPRTU, who have good intentions for the public, what is informing the attempts to criminalise “deviant” drivers with brute enforcement instead of reasoning with them to comply with an ethical issue?
Which parts of the Road Traffic Act, the Local Government Act 1993(Act 462) and Act 936 have prompted the setting up of taskforces under political control?
What is the crime and the penalty associated with the misconduct?
Why have the suspects not been arraigned before any court of competent jurisdiction but have been physically assaulted and bruised?
What legal framework underlines the purported interference by task forces set up by the fiat of chief executives, whether metropolitan or municipal and National Security operatives.
What the drivers are doing, in splintering and balkanising routes to cheat passengers, is unreasonable.
Charging different fees in the morning from what prevails in the evening is unfair, but the solution is not through revolutionary expediency, but must be anchored on dialogue, discourse, negotiations and appeals to their conscience, not coercion, populist fundamentalism and impunity.
Although our local transport operators contribute to undermining the state-owned public transport companies, particularly those which provide intra-city services.
More importantly, our people detest high-occupancy buses and our transport system has been virtually a private sector monopoly. It is thus distressing when unscrupulous operators decide to fleece the public.
Methods
Many Ghanaians may be happy about using unorthodox and revolutionary methods to compel drivers to charge moderately and not to balkanise routes and cause needless insecurity.
But the bottom line is that we are a constitutional democracy and must apply the rule of law and due process in resolving all matters that come up against the public interest.
Whilst Section 30 of Act 462 assigns transport-related roles, such as providing transport services to district assemblies, it does not authorise them to regulate commercial transport fares.
Therefore, if the drivers are acting wantonly and undermining legitimacy, we need to engage them constructively, positively and functionally, after which we would have to leave them to their conscience and public response.
Ours is a deregulated market and thus we need to use administrative and persuasive methods, but not revolutionary methods and impunity.
Drivers are not the only service providers in the country whose actions are undermining the public interest.
Almost every Ghanaian tries to cheat in their operational areas but complains about exploitation from other service providers.
What would people feel if the District, Municipal and Metropolitan Chief Executives descended on all manner of service providers, including market women and set up task forces under National Security operatives because they want them to offer their services at a reasonable cost in the interest of consumers and the general public, because the cedi is performing strongly?
The other day, I listened to a programme on television, involving an official of the GPRTU and secretary to the Spare Parts Dealers Association.
Whilst the GPRTU representative insisted that the cost of spare parts is high, the spokesperson of the parts dealers maintained that prices of parts for new vehicles have been reduced but that of secondhand cars had not changed much because of difficulties in acquiring them.
He explained that for new vehicles, there is certainty about delivery dates, but there is no guarantee for secondhand parts.
Since we have resolved to depend on secondhand vehicles and parts ” because the quality of the new parts cannot be guaranteed due to the influx of fake and substandard products,” there may be the need to thoroughly review the situation to enable us to come out with sustained, durable and lawful solutions rather than resorting to revolutionary measures.
Prof. Kweku Gumye Folson, before we entered the Fourth Republic, noted that there is no correlation between Revolution and Constitutional Democracy and cautioned that when we see any trace of revolution emerging under the Fourth Republic, we should raise the red flag to repulse it before it becomes a monster to overwhelm us, stating that vigilance is critical.
Article 14(5) states that “A person who is unlawfully arrested, restricted or detained by any other person shall be entitled to compensation from that other person”.
The drivers have been subjected to all of these, including manhandling, physical assault and humiliation.
The writer is a lawyer.
