President of the Student’s Representative Council of the University of Ghana, Sylvester Amoako has stated that his administration will not hesitate in leading the entire students body in a demonstration “if management does not end RSTC’s reign of terror by allowing our buses back unto the road”.He opined
Since the commencement of the 2018/19 academic year, one issue that has excoriated the students body is the issue of commuting.
The University of Ghana in 2015, entered into a Public Private Partnership with the Road Safety and Transport Consultancy (RSTC) Limited to enable staff and students have better and easy access to facilities on campus as the buses would ply various major routes on campus.
However, what appeared to be a sweet relationship between the University and RSTC soon turned bitter as the former begun lamenting on its inability to break even.
According to RSTC, since it entered an agreement with the University, it has struggled to make profits.
This led them to increase the shuttle fare from an initial GHC1.00 to GHC1.50.
However, agitations from students and subsequent meetings between RSTC and the SRC, ahead of the academic year saw the ply fare return back to GHC1.00
Unfortunately, few weeks into the academic year, RSTC reduced their buses from 10 to 3.
In an engagement with the CEO of RSTC, Mr. Godfred Akyea-Darkwah revealed that, the decision to reduce the buses was unilateral although he has agreed with the SRC to still make 10 buses available for students regardless of the downward review of the shuttle fare.
Subsequently, the SRC, in a bid to ensure that students especially the Diaspora halls do not suffer from RSTC’s “terror,” introduced some buses for shuttling purposes.
In an interesting turn of events, University Management ordered the new transport operators to vacate the University campus.
In a recent development, the President of the SRC, Sylvester Amoako vowed to lead a peaceful demonstration if Management does not end RSTC’s reign terror by allowing their buses back to the road.
In a statement released on Friday evening, Sylvester Amoako explained the sudden disappearance of the three buses acquired by the SRC to curb the shuttle crisis in the Diaspora.
According to him, PDMSD had stated that there have been procedural breaches in engaging the transport service and further called the student body to keep calm as procedural righteousness were being filled.
He added that RSTC disrespected the SRC and the entire student body when they failed to provide just three buses, which has caused a lot of suffering on campus. He hinted.
