Yesterday, the Ghana National Petroleum Drivers Union and the Gas Tanker Drivers Union announced a statewide, indefinite sit-down strike. It stated that the inability of its roadways from the GTP roundabout at Community 4 in Tema, in the Greater Accra Region, connecting the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) via a heavy industrial region to Kpone, the administrative center of the Kpone KatamansoDistrict, necessitated the strike. Mr. Raymond Aflo, secretary of the Ghana National Petroleum Drivers Union, said in an interview with the Ghanaian Times yesterday that the strike would continue until the 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 these 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 team, 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 pipelines, the Asogli and Asaa power plants,” he stated.
MrAflo stated that there was a need for government to pay special attention to the said road due to its strategic and security nature. He further stated that TOR and its human resource were crucial to the prosperity of the country and could not be played about with for political purposes.
"It took a few months to build roads; why can't government build roads of strategic importance whenever there are by-elections in constituencies?" According to him, the Ministry of Roads and Highways has received multiple petitions and letters in addition to personal interactions with Mr. Kwasi Amoako-Attah, the sector minister, according to the Ghanaian Times.
"The government cut the sod for the road reconstruction in 2020, but to this day nothing has happened; all we have gotten are empty promises," he claimed.
