The Minister of Roads and Highways, Mr Kwasi Amoako-Attah, will meet the leadership of the Ghana National Petroleum Tanker Drivers Union to resolve the nationwide indefinite sit down industrial action embarked upon by the union.
The strike which entered its fourth day has started causing shortage of gas and petroleum products at some filling stations in the country.
Mr Sunday Alabi, national vice chairman, confirmed this to the Ghanaian Times yesterday.
A delegation from the Ministry of Roads and Highways who earlier met with the union executives on Tuesday, could not resolve the issues.
This was because the union insisted that until the unmotorable nature of their roads was fixed they could not call off the strike.
The Ministry’s delegation led by its Chief Director, Dr Abas Awolu, therefore, rescheduled the meeting to today.
Earlier, the delegation went on a familiarisation tour of the roads.
The union embarked on the strike due to the unmotorable nature of the road from the GTP roundabout at Community 4 in Tema, in the Greater Accra Region, linking the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) through heavy industrial area to Kpone, capital of Kpone Katamanso District.
In an interview with the Ghanaian Times on Tuesday, Mr Raymond Aflo, national secretary of the union, stated that the strike would remain indefinite until government fixed the road.
“The road has become impassable and creates a risk to our drivers, the road served eight terminal depots, and over 3,500 tankers ply this routes to supply the country’s petroleum and liquid petroleum gas (LPG).
Vehicles including LPG trucks meander through huge potholes on this road,” he lamented.
“Last month a tanker loaded with petrol fell on its side and we had to call in the TOR emergency, if it were an LPG truck that had this accident could we imagine the disaster it would have caused to the entire industrial enclave including TOR pipe lines, the Asogli and Asaa power plants,” he stated.
Mr Aflo stated that, there was a need for government to pay special attention to the said road due to its strategic and security nature.
He added that, TOR and its human resource were significant to the nation’s development and cannot be toyed with at the expense of political expediency.
“It took few months to construct roads, whenever there are by-elections in constituencies, why can’t government construct roads of strategic importance?”
FROM IAN MOTEY, TEMA
