Lack of improved transportation system in some remote districts in the Northern Region has resulted in people hoping to travel to Tamale to use stones to represent them in queues at Metro Mass Transit (MMT) terminals.
The practice, helps them to secure their seats on the buses, and enables them to avoid standing in long queues for hours at the terminals.
Other people who do not intend to travel, have made it their business to join the queues and buy the tickets and sell them at higher prices.
Ghana News Agency (GNA) witnessed the situation when it undertook a tour of MMT terminals at Chereponi, Zabzugu, and Wulensi during the week to assess the transportation challenges facing residents.
The buses depart for Tamale mostly around mid-night and the worrying situation is that some break down on the deplorable roads, forcing passengers to pass the night sometimes in the bush.
Madam Dambo Ibrahim Zuwura, an Orderly at the Chereponi Government Hospital, who spoke to GNA at Chereponi, said the situation is so frustrating that workers, especially public sector employees, spent at least two days to travel to the nearest town where banks are sited to collect their salaries.
Mr Kadiri Alimiyaw, a farmer and social worker at Chereponi said: �You cannot sleep if you intend to travel from Chereponi to Tamale because you have to stay in a long queue or place stones in the queue to represent you until 22 hours GMT to 23 hours GMT when the bus will be ready to take off.�
Mr Abdul Rahman, a social worker at Wulensi in the Nanumba South District, told GNA that �Sometimes when tickets have been sold, other passengers, who do not get the tickets, are asked to stand on the bus throughout the journey even though they pay the same fares.�
Mr Rahman appealed to the government and the Management of MMT to increase the fleet of buses on the roads to districts that are farthest from Tamale to address the transportation challenges of the people to improve their economic activities.
In an interview with GNA, Mr Bawa Abdul Samed, Northern Regional Traffic Supervisor of MMT, admitted that the frustrations of the passengers are genuine, adding that the late departure of the buses are sometimes due to maintenance challenges.
Mr Samed said most of the MMT buses in the region are old and had to be repaired after every trip adding that what compound the situation is the fact that only one bus is allocated to a town and had to be repaired after every trip to avoid breaking down.
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