Reintroduce mandatory towing levy – Keskine Owusu Poku to Gov’t
There seems to be a new campaign calling on the government of Ghana to reintroduce the towing levy on all owners and persons in charge of motor vehicles, for the purpose of towing broken down or disabled vehicles on the roads following the recent rise of carnages on our roads.
A New Patriotic Party(NPP) communicator in the Ashanti Region, Mr. Keskine Owusu Poku is appealing to the government to reintroduce the once rejected initiative to save lives on our roads.
In his submission on Kumasi-based Angel FM’s flagship program ‘Angel in the Morning’, hosted by Kwame Tanko (KT) on Wednesday, March 16, 2022, Mr. Owusu Poku said the towing levy introduction must take a non-partisan approach.
”I believe it’s time government reconsider the towing levy. We’re losing too many lives to road accidents in recent times. If we had paid this towing levy way back in 2017, we wouldn’t have lost these lives. But for parochial reasons and partisanship, Jospong was accused unnecessarily without cause, and finally, the idea was abandoned; but I think the time is now. Our siblings who have lost their lives simply because we were petty over a small token to be taken as towing levy won’t forgive us. We can’t quantify the lives lost in monetary terms. I’m a member of the NPP, but I believe those who died could be sympathizers of both political parties.”
Keskine Opoku made a passionate appeal to the government to renegotiate with the Jospong Group of Companies to take up the initiative in order to save lives.
“If the financing module is problem, let’s examine the policy options available to us and make a decision. We can integrate it with the car insurance paid each years and allow insurance companies to outsource the towing services. DVLA can also work closely with MTTD to authenticate services provided each month so that payments are made directly by DVLA on pay as you go basis. The bid can also be broken down into highways and townroads. The main highways can be given to Jospon since that’s where the casualties are plenty. And the local towing services can handle the inner city or townroads. At the end of the day, the perfect module must save lives and property, preserve jobs and create even more jobs.”
“If Jospong is capable, he should be given the mandate to do it. Lets do away with this pettiness and ‘abro’ attitude. At the end of the day he’s a Ghanaian too and this project will benefit all of us”, he stressed.
The Mandatory Towing Levy initiative was first scheduled for implementation on July 1, 2017, following the passage of a Legislative Instrument (L.I), 2012 (Road Traffic Regulations, 2012) by the Parliament of Ghana as part of measures to reduce road accidents in the country.
Source: Purefmonline.com|Ghana|2022
