Authorities of the Volta Lake Transport Company has clarified the outrageous charges at the various ferry stations across the country.
Their clarification comes after some members of the heavy duty drivers at the Afram Plains South area condemned the outrageous fares being charged to passengers and drivers plying their route on the Afram Plains Pontoon.
Speaking to Kwame Koranteng on Republic FM’s Anopa Dawuro on Monday, June 6, the Business development officer at the commercials department of the Volta Lake Transport Company, Yakubu Tanko stated that the claims by the drivers are true but insisted that the new charges are applicable to all the ferry stations in the country and not the Afram Plains alone.
“It’s true, the tariffs on the ferry station is not centered at the Afram Plains alone, we have the same thing in Kete Krachi, Dambai, Yeji, Kpando and Adɔɔso have been affected”, he said.
The new ferry charge is penned at 15% across board. He said, the increment was necessary due to the production cost, fuel hikes and economic crisis across the world.
According to him, there has never been any tariff increment at the Adɔɔso Ferry station since 2014.
“There has been adjustment in everything, fuel hikes and production costs. Fuel hikes has gone up from 2019 to 2022 for about 5 times, purging at 40 to 50% and since 2014, particularly, we have not increased tariffs at the Adɔɔso area because anytime we opt to do so they decline and chants on us but it has become necessary now because the ferry station is at the brink of difficulty”.
According to Yakubu Tanko while citing some challenges that influenced the new charges, he said, the revenue alone cannot sustain the operations. He said, the authority purchase 18,000 liters fuel at a cost of Gh500,000 every 3 months.
He added that, workers salary, maintenance were taken into consideration. According to him, a single engine of the ferry costs 2million euros.
“We are in difficulty because revenue alone cannot sustain the operations. As we speak now, 18,000 liters fuel for the operation of the ferry costs us Gh500,000 every 3 months and where do we get that kind of money from”.
However, he discredited the accusations being made the driver union that it did not engage them before the charges were applied to them and urged the drivers to align with the authority to ensure the smooth operation of the ferry station.
According to him, Charges are even higher at the Dambai which has about 20 minutes crossover unlike the Afram Adɔɔso crossing which has 30 minutes crossover.