Drivers to Disallow selling, preaching on vehicles-GPRTU

Published on 26th October 2009, Daily Graphic pg 30

Drivers to disallow selling, preaching on vehicles-GPRTU

Story: Matilda Attram
THE Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) of the TUC has warned that drivers who allow pastors and herbalists to preach and sell drugs in their vehicles will be suspended by the union.
It said the practice of preaching and selling in moving vehicles deprived passengers of their right to privacy while in moving vehicles.
The Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the GPRTU, Alhaji Eesa Antiaye Tetteh, told the Daily Graphic that the practice of preaching, advertising and selling drugs in moving vehicles was against the union’s rules and regulations, but some passengers encouraged drivers to allow the practice.
He disclosed that the union had informed that its various offices to only allow individuals to preach, advertise or sell items at the lorry parks but not on the moving vehicles.
Alhaji Tetteh stressed that drivers who were found guilty of such acts would be suspended from loading passengers at their registered stations.
”We’ve had cases where heads of traditional healers associations and other organisations had come to plead on behalf of some suspended drivers, but we did not tolerate that because the right thing must be done,” he said.
Alhaji Tetteh urged the public to co-operate with the union by noting and providing numbers of vehicles, in which such practices occur.
He said the union had no monitoring team to check on drivers who allowed such practices, but would depend on the station executives of the union to do so.
Golda Appiah, a passenger at the Neoplan Station of the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, said the practice of selling and preaching in moving buses tended to disturb and embarrass passengers, who may not want to listen to them.
“If a passenger complain about those who preach the word of God or even sleep while preaching is going on, he or she is seen as an unbeliever of the word,” she said.
Another passenger, Oswald Atta, said there was the need for the GPRTU to take urgent action on the issue of preaching and selling in moving vehicles, since it had been a source of concern for a long time for most passengers.