Passengers in Kumasi commuting on traffic prone roads such as Suame – Maakro, Kronum – Afrancho , Kejetia – Offinso, and other areas have expressed frustration over what they describe as excessive transport fares being charged by commercial drivers.
According to the affected commuters, public transport drivers locally referred to as ‘trotro‘ are charging nearly three times the usual fare, with no official directive justifying the increment.
Some passengers have appealed to transport operators to officially announce new fares to avert petty quarrels between them and drivers.
Onua News, during a visit to these areas observed that some commercial drivers have increased fares by about some 100 per cent since December 2024, with drivers charging GH₵20.00 instead of GH₵10.00 from Kejetia to Offinso.
Also, some passengers are paying GH₵10.00 instead of GH₵4.00 for a trotro trip from Kejetia to Breman.
This is causing misunderstanding between drivers and passengers, some leading to assaults.
Some passengers Onua News talked to, disclosed that they had not officially heard from the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) on any new increment hence unwilling to pay these new fares.
They told Onua News’ Kwame Yeboah that they were surprised at the increment, saying the Ghana Private Road and Transport Union had earlier told the drivers to hold on with the collection of any new fares.
In their lamentations, they disclosed how they are made to pay for three times the legal fare they are supposed to pay, despite no directive from any authority to increase the fares.
A passenger who spoke with our reporter indicated that “the drivers and passengers have always been fighting. The fare to Maakro is supposed to be GHC3.00 but they’re charging GHC5.00 and even with that, they won’t transport you straight but drop you at Maakro and then take you to Kronom and charge another GHC5.00 so you end up paying GHC10.00 for a fare which was supposed to be GHC4.00.”
“It is really disturbing because the fare from Kejetia to Kronom is GHC4.00 but they now want to take GHC10.00. Even if you’re increasing the fare, at least GHC5.00 or GHC6.00 would have been reasonable but GHC10.00 is too much,” lamented another woman.
A young lady who shared her frustration also revealed that “the fare from here (Kronom) to Kejetia was GHC4.00 and that was even after they increased fuel prices but now they take GHC4.00 from here to Maakro and another GHC4.00 from Maakro to Kejetia making GHC8.00. But when you’re returning from Kejetia, that they’ll charge you 10, 15, or 20 cedis whilst fuel prices have not been increased. And when fuel prices go up, they will increase it again. So I support the idea to bring soldiers and police on the roads.”
This elderly man said he supports the idea of dispatching security officials along the roads to solve this issue which has become a worry to passengers.
“I support the idea 100%. Because the last time I was coming from Suame to Kronom and they were shouting Maakro. When you alight then they call for Kronom. From there they will shout for Bourho for another fare so before you arrive at Afrancho from Suame, then they would have have squeezed a lot of money out of you.
Meanwhile some drivers said, they are collecting the unapproved fares due to the heavy traffic in some areas within the Ashanti Region. Onua News gathered that some drivers started collecting the new fares from December 2024.
