Wherever you come across a traffic jam in Ghana you are likely to see a minibus or trotro. The trotro has been with us as long as the currency from which it got its name ? tro (quarter coin).

It came in as the cheapest means of transport for ordinary Ghanaians. The phenomenon is not exclusive in this country ? Nigeri a even has a bigger issue with the mini-buses plying the commercial routes.

Even in countries such as South Africa and Kenya, where they have a far superior public transport system (trains and buses) the mutati reigns supreme. A few years ago the Kenyan authorities took a ?bold? decision to clamp down on them by demanding their driver?s licence, etc, their response was to mount a general strike, turning the ordinary citizens against the establishment! But, the government did not relent. So relatively neatly regulated are the busy routes of Nairobi and Johannesburg that the mini-buses over there are more a joy to watch than the inconvenient little menaces that they are in Ghana. Yet, even in those countries they are still considered problematic enough for the city authorities.

What is absolutely obvious in Ghana is that the establishment here does not seem to have any plan on how to contain or otherwise control the over-growing phenomenon of trotro. To operate a trotro in Ghana all one needs to do is to purchase a second hand Nissan Urvan or the like, go through a simple process of having it registered as a commercial vehicle, get a former ?mate? or aplanke to acquire a dubious driver?s licence and just pick a route and join the menace. It is estimated that in the Greater Accra Region alone about 9,000 new trotros are registered annually. Everyone is getting into the act, including the Minority Leader in Parliament, who owns a trotro that plies the 37 Military Hospital route.

The irony is that it is not even such a good investment for the owners ? unless of course you are the owner-driver.

The traffic situation in our urban areas is getting alarmingly worse every day. There are several reasons for this: inadequate road networks; over-reliance on road transport; ever-increasing number of road vehicles; and undisciplined road users, etc.

But, we estimate that over 60 percent of the traffic jam on our roads is caused by commercial vehicles, especially trotros.

Trotro drivers stop and pick passengers everywhere. They are reckless in their haste to rejoin the road. Always in a particular hurry, they create their own lanes in their corporate selfish effort to beat the traffic only to end up causing a major jam ahead.

A typical example is the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra. The must-avoid gridlock there is often caused not necessarily by the number of vehicles using the road (nor by road works) but the number of clever-than-thou trotro drivers who have redefined the rules of negotiating a round-about.

We believe this problem cannot be allowed to continue. It is just getting worse. Government must bring some sanity. The first step, we believe, is to reduce public reliance on the trotro by providing more and more Metro Buses. Secondly, the operation of commercial vehicles generally must be stringently regulated.

Owning and operating a trotro must not be as easy as setting up a table in front of your house to sell chewing gum and bananas.

A lot of the trotros are not even roadworthy. There are, arguably, more trotros than passengers. They make themselves relevant mainly because of the traffic jam they themselves cause, making it longer to travel up and down any particular route.

The routes must be franchised out. Access to routes by passenger vehicles is too easy, compromising on safety of passengers and effective use of the routes. This laissez faire ? free for all ? status in our commercial transport system must be checked. When an economic system is too laissez faire, quality is compromised, competition is cheapened and ultimately it is the customer who suffers ? being denied value for cost.

The cost of traffic to the economy, in productive time and fuel alone, must run into billions of cedis daily. Government, especially both the Transport Ministry and local authorities must start acting responsibly.