From Alfred Adams .
It is becoming seemingly clear that the various branches of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) are deviating from their core business in the transport sector.
Though the GPRTU has never been into real estate development, it seems it has now decided to invest in that sector.
This is because most of the lorry stations being managed by the organisation has seen the sudden development of storey buildings, which are being rented out for offices, thereby compounding the already lack of adequate space at the various stations.
In Sekondi-Takoradi the story is no different, as the main GPRTU lorry station has suddenly seen the rise of a three-storey structure which is being rented out for offices.
This structure has, surprisingly, culminated in reducing space at the lorry station, leading to vehicles, which hitherto parked in the station to load and offload passengers, having to do that by the roadsides.
This has led to vehicles now competing with pedestrians for space. At Kwesimintsim, for instance, the Progressive Transport Owners Association (PROTOA) is also battling the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA) to secure a permit to also put up a building structure to rent out as offices.
Meanwhile concerns have been raised about how the STMA managed to give a permit to the Takoradi GPRTU to put up the storey building structure.
At a regional workshop held for stakeholders in the land sector, it became clear that the granting of the permit to the GPRTU was illegal, since the union’s core business was not the development of buildings for rental at lorry stations.