Shop owners, Tata bus drivers heading for collusion (Metro Page)

SHOP owners along the Kaneshie main road have appealed to the city authorities to stop trotro drivers from parking in front of their shops.
The traders who operate along the road between the Kaneshie First Light and the first overhead bridge opposite the Kaneshie Market Complex said they were gradually becoming bankrupt because the buses prevented customers from seeing and buying their wares.
The traders, who deal mainly in hardware, building materials, stationery, toiletries, electrical appliances, cement and household wares, complained about the hostile attitude of the drivers who were making life unbearable for them.
In separate interviews with the traders, many of them told the Daily Graphic that they were being frustrated by the drivers hence their plea to the city authorities through the media.
“My sister, we find it difficult to understand why the city guards allow these buses to park all day along the road but move in quickly to clamp smaller vehicles whose drivers park to buy from us. Is it a way of preventing us from getting our daily bread?”, 26-year-old Joojo queried.
According to the traders, those long Tata buses used to park near the second bridge near Mpamprom until last June when a heavy downpour in Accra destroyed that portion of the road.
They said the drivers moved to the present location with the excuse that they would move back after the road had been rehabilitated but had failed to do so months after the rehabilitation work has been completed.
The traders complained that apart from blocking their wares from prospective buyers, the bus drivers and their mates also use the road as a dumping site where they off-loaded refuse from the buses onto the street each morning.
In addition, the traders alleged that the drivers and their mates used the road as their bathroom where they wash down each morning and also clean their vehicles.
A dealer in hardware, 32-year-old Mr Martin Korle, told the Daily Graphic that the attitude of the drivers was making them lose customers which should not be allowed to continue now that Christmas was approaching.
Another trader alleged that the issue had been reported to the Kaneshie police but no action had been taken on the matter.
A dealer in cosmetics who is known only as Connie said her sales had dropped to about 60 per cent since the buses began parking in front of her shop.
She said if the trend continued, she and many of the shop owners might find it difficult to pay their taxes and loans they had contracted from the banks.
A gentleman who trades in paint said that few days ago, a truck pusher who asked a driver to park well to enable him load some items from a shop had his head hit with a a metal by a driver’s mate on one of the buses.
Auntie Yaa, one of the traders, said the earlier the city authorities found a solution to the problem, the better since they could not continue to look on unconcerned as the drivers prevented them from making sales.
“We might end up organising street protests if nothing is done about the situation. Our businesses are going down gradually and no one seems to care”, she lamented.
“The other time one of the drivers picked a fight with one of the shop owners here and it took the intervention of passers-by to avert bloodshed”, another trader told this reporter.
A visit to the area revealed that the way the buses were parked, sometimes extending to the middle of the road, contributed significantly to the heavy traffic situation on the road.
At about 9.30 am today when the Daily Graphic visited the place, about 10 long buses were seen parked close to the other, preventing anybody who would want to walk to any of the shops from doing so.
There was no way any vehicle could park to buy from any of the shops since the whole area was already congested with those long Tata buses.
In one of the buses, this writer saw a young man pouring out what looked like urine through a small opening on the side of the bus onto the road.