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Commercial drivers in the Sekondi-Takoradi on Monday staged a three-hour demonstration against unauthorised picking of passengers in some places in the metropolis.

The protesters converged at the Takoradi Jubilee Park around 0700 hours and marched through the principal streets of Takoradi through to Sekondi holding placards with the following inscriptions: “STMA give chance to GPRTU to operate”, STMA don’t undermine GPRTU”,STMA stop the lawlessness, you are creating nuisance in the city” and many others.

They indicated that those unauthorised commercial drivers popularly called “bombers” or “wawa” often pick passengers at Edzii Goil Filling Station Roundabout, All Needs Supermarket traffic light and Yekom Ma Ewuradze Cold Store Avenue.

They presented a petition to the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), Madam Charlotte Otuwa Odum and urged the city authorities, to enforce the Assembly’s bye-laws on picking and parking to ensure peace and tranquillity.

They warned that if the city authorities failed to act after three days, they would also go to the street and pick passengers at unauthorized places.

Madam Odum indicated that the city authorities had already instituted measures to curb the unlawful practice and assured them that the Assembly would collaborate with the Ghana Police Service, to enforce byelaws in the metropolis.

She said the Assembly would soon erect parking and picking sign posts at those unauthorized points, saying any driver who breaches the Assembly’s bye-law would be arrested and sanctioned.

Mr. Isaac Essau, the Western Regional Chairman of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) of Trades Union Congress (TUC), later told the media that commercial drivers who patronised the unauthorized points did not belong to any transport union and, therefore, refused to pay parking tolls or levies to the Assembly.

According to him, the unauthorised picking of passengers prevented them from patronising the designated transport terminals thereby depriving them of revenues.

The Road Traffic Regulation, 2012, LI 2180 (Article 183) stipulated that: “A person driving a bus or a taxi shall not stop or park the bus or taxi on a road at a place other than a designated bus stop or taxi stand”.

The law added “Anyone who contravened the law commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not less than ten penalty units and not more than thirty days or to both”