General News of Thursday, 22 December 2011

Source: gna

Passengers frustrated over long queues at lorry stations

Passengers in Accra on Wednesday expressed their frustration at what they described as abnormal long queues in the various lorry parks, making it difficult for them to travel to the city to shop for the Christmas celebrations.

They said the long hours they spent waiting to board vehicles to their various destinations within the city had become unbearable.

In an interview with Ghana News Agency (GNA), the passengers attributed the situation to heavy traffic within the city, which prevented some commercial vehicles from coming back to lorry stations after offloading other passengers.

When GNA visited the Tema Lorry Station and other stations in the city at about 1100 hours, scores of people were in long queues waiting impatiently for vehicle “trotro”

Passengers travelling to Kwame Nkrumah Circle and the Central Business District in the Accra Metropolis, were in long queues at four different locations in the scorching sun.

Others had no option than to fall into the hands of some taxi drivers who took advantage of the situation and charged exorbitant fares.

The situation was not different from those traveling to Madina, Tema, Achimota and Kasoa as these passengers, who were not in queues struggled and fought their way through to board vehicles.

Nana Poku, an irritated passenger, complained bitterly to GNA for spending three hours in the queue.

“When you ask me, I will say the issue of easy access to vehicle to work has always been a headache, just that the festive season has worsen the situation.”

Uncle Joe, a Station Officer in Accra, said they were aware of the situation but could not do anything about the problem because it was beyond their control and appealed to passengers to exercise restrain.

Meanwhile, heavy traffic on the Achimota-Accra road is posing another problem for Abeka-Lapaz passengers.