By Lamin Njie
The Ministry of Transport, Works and Infrastructure (MoTWI) on Monday, January 16th announced in a press release that an agreement has been reached to increase the transport fares for all official routes across the country, effective 20th January 2023.
“In the same vein, an agreement has been reached to adopt a new tariff for the transportation of containers across the country. This gesture is in fulfillment of the agreement reached with the General Transport Union and the Port Transporters Association,” the release added.
However, the Ministry indicated that as a condition for the implementation of increment of fares and the new tariffs, route licensing will be introduced for various destinations across the country, a scheme that allows vehicles to register and ply a particular route.
“The main objective of introducing a route licensing scheme is to eliminate the charging of double or triple fares for various destinations”.
MoTWI announced that the stickers and permits for the route licensing scheme have been issued to vehicles plying various routes within the Greater Banjul Area, and that it is expected that the scheme will be rolled out to all other routes within the country in due course.
“In light of the foregoing, the Transport Union and heads of Car Parks are urged to ensure that drivers adhere to the principles guiding route licensing. It is anticipated that as the government fulfilled its promise in increasing tariffs, we expect the Union and its members to also fulfill their commitment as per the Communiqué signed in September 2022,” the release stated.
Finally, the Ministry warned that doubling or tripling fares will no longer be tolerated in the road transport industry and that failure to comply with the new route licensing scheme by the transporters will result in taking necessary actions.
