Acting District Chief Executive (DCE) for Garu Emmanuel Avoka, has blamed the rise in the number of accidents especially in the Northern part of the country on the amount of sales car owners expect from their drivers.

There has been several accidents in recent times in the Northern Part of the country involving buses either travelling to or from Garu.

But speaking in an interview, the Acting District Chief Executive (DCE) Emmanuel Avoka noted that the high target expectation of drivers leave them with no choice than to rush on the roads in order to achieve their boss’ expected sales.

“One of the reasons for which a driver would like to make a u-turn to Kumasi or Garu would be that the vehicle owner has given the driver an amount of GHS10,000 to produce within a week. And then whatever is surplus from the travels within that week becomes the salary of the driver.

So the driver has to go through a lot of fatigue and sleepless nights to ensure he makes about 4 to 5 trips within the 7 days of the week. And you’re aware that these are buses with just a single driver. You can be sure that driver fatigue is going to be prime; and when driver fatigue sets in, then sleep takes over.”

He continued “Because of the stress that is put on the drivers by the vehicle owners, they resort to drinking substances that will keep them awake throughout the week to be able to at least raise about GHS12,000 so they can pay GHS10,000 to their vehicle owners”.

The acting DCE said they are taking steps to address this indicating that he has “scheduled a meeting with all the owners of commercial vehicles operating in Garu, for an important meeting. And we have cautioned that any vehicle owner that fails to attend this very important meeting will not be given the opportunity to have his or her vehicle be part of business in the Garu area”.