111 Metro buses to be cannibalised

THE Managing Director of the Metro Mass Transit Limited (MMT), Mr Venk Visschers, has revealed that 111 of the 400 Yaxing (yellow) buses acquired from the Chinese Government in 2004 will be cannibalised.
Mr Visschers said the yellow buses which were almost 20 years old at the time they were presented to the government of Ghana as a gift to start the mass transport system under the previous administration had outlived their usefulness and were no longer economically viable on the road.
Mr Visschers, who was speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic, said the company would import 300 new busses from China to replace the over used yellow buses.
The dismantled parts will be used for other purposes such as replacement parts for the other buses which were still in operation.
“This we will execute in three phases and will take the company between two to three years to complete,” he said.
Mr Visschers said this would curb the unfortunate problem of constant break down of the company’s buses on the road, and that “our intention is to operate an efficient and effective transport system in the country, thereby becoming one of the best in the sub-region”.
Mr Visschers said the introduction of the Metro Mass buses in the country had been of immense help to the economy.
“Since the introduction of service we have been able to transport over 50 million Ghanaians across the country, particularly to the very remote areas of the country,” Mr Visschers said.
He also explained that during the 2008 elections the MMT transported over 10,000 Ghanaians from one destination to the other.
Mr Visschers said as a state transport service, the objective was not to make huge profit, but to help the less privileged in the economy.
He however said that, "we must be able to make some profit and invest it in other areas of the business, such as bringing in more buses, improving the service conditions of staff, particularly drivers and also put the company in a better position to compete.
The Managing Director said some of the difficulties the MMT faced were the over congestion in the cities and competition with “trotros” at the various terminals.
“The MMT buses cannot drive on the shoulders of the roads as the trotro drivers do,” he added.
He, therefore, suggested the construction of bus lanes in future road construction programmes to make bus transportation an attractive one.
Mr Visschers also suggested that in the short term buses should be allowed to use one of the other lanes in the opposite direction as most were empty at a particular point in time.
The introduction of the buses, he said, would bring fewer cars on our roads, and thereby reduce traffic in the cities.
Mr Visschers said the attitude of the staff had not been helpful in the past as most of them were involved in stealing and selling spare parts of the buses, issuing tickets and pocketing the proceeds for themselves.
These attitudes, he said, accounted for about 40 per cent of the losses the company made in the past. “We have been able to reduce this unfortunate incidence to about 15 per cent and the target is to eradicate it for ever, “ the managing director said.