Government’s approach to towing levy sign of incompetence – NDC’s Chief Biney

A member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has chided government over the suspension of the towing levy, describing the approach adopted by government as “incompetent”.

According to Chief Biney, a simple solution to the towing levy brouhaha could have been easily solved by thinking outside the box and not necessarily trying to force the already over-burdened car owners to pay extra money taking into consideration the current hardship.

“I am not against the towing levy and I am not sure those who have equally raised objections are against it but the lazy approach by government is my concern. They say they are competent so I expect them to think outside the box, that is what competent people will do. But the government so far has proven to be the opposite and that is why we are where we are today on this simple issue of towing from our roads,” he noted.

Government in an attempt to reduce road crashes in the country, introduced a mandatory towing levy which if accepted and approve by Parliament, will compel every vehicle owners to pay an amount which in turn will be used to remove breakdown vehicles from the road. However, this policy has been met with fierce resistance from the general public resulting into suspension of the policy by the Transport Minister Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, saying the decision to suspend the policy was taken after an extensive consultation pending a review of the law.

But contained in his reaction on Onua Fm morning show hosted by Bright Kwesi Asempa on Monday, Chief Biney opined that the reason cited by the Minister for suspending the towing levy to the least, “smacks of incompetence” He explained that government should have thought of setting up a National Towing Centre which it can run with a quota of percentage from both DVLA and all Insurance companies by creating a dedicated fund where that fund will be channel into.

“We have agreed that there should be mandatory towing centre but the issue here is about mandatory towing levy, so if the DVLA and the Insurance companies take money from transport owners, why can’t we take a percentage from them, create a fund with it and use it to operate a National Towing Centre, that is thinking outside the box but it appears government is lazy to think outside the box, is this competence”

Chief Biney has therefore called on government to consider his proposition or creative means of raising funds to implement the towing policy rather than the attempt to put more pressure on the finances of the Ghanaian car owners, adding that “they daily told Ghanaians while in opposition that the erstwhile NDC administration was incompetent and that they have men with bigger ideas so Ghanaians expect them to be creative, where is the creative thinkers”