Sofoline drivers protest ejection from terminal

Drivers at Sofoline in the Ashanti Region have kicked against the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly’s decision to evict them from their bus terminal.

The drivers’ association demonstrated on the morning of Friday April 29 to protest the decision.

Most of the drivers wore red armbands and refused to commute passengers to their various destinations, leaving them stranded.

Chairman of the Sofoline Drivers’ Association Albert Kwasi Boamah, speaking to Class News, wanted the KMA to come clean on why they were evicting them from the terminal.

“We carried this story sometime back and the KMA denied that they didn’t know anything about this project coming on at Sofoline,” he stated.

“They want to eject us from this terminal to pave way to reconstruct a modern terminal with a grant from the World Bank. They called us to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) but we brought up some proposals that they should include in the MOU and they refused.

“...We have heard that there are private investors that KMA wants to award the contract to in the form of a BOT and we don’t agree to that, and all that we are saying is that we want to know the source of the funds they are using to build the terminal and moreso we want the mayor to append his signature to whatever letter they bring to us here, and also we want him personally to address meetings that they have been calling at the KMA.

“At times they call us at the urban roads compound, at times they go to the sub-metro. We don’t understand what they want to tell us. We want the mayor to come out to tell us that: ‘The project is real and I am leading the KMA and I am responsible for the project’, so that we will just listen to them and allow them to do the work, which is all we are asking.”