GPRTU opposes auctioning broken-down vehicles after 21 days

The Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) is calling for a review of a provision in the Road Traffic Regulations, 2026 (L.I. 2519), which allows authorities to auction broken-down vehicles left at designated holding areas for 21 days.

The union says it supports the immediate removal of broken-down vehicles from roads but argues that auctioning them after 21 days could cause significant financial losses to commercial transport operators.

Deputy Public Relations Officer of the GPRTU, Samuel Amoah, said vehicle owners should instead be allowed to reclaim their vehicles after paying the applicable towing and storage fees.

He argued that vehicle owners would not deliberately abandon their vehicles on the road, particularly after they had been towed to a safer location.

“In the previous LI, it was stated that when your vehicle breaks down in the city, you have 30 minutes to tow it, and when it breaks down on the highway, you have one hour to tow it off the road. Now they said immediately, yes, we agree with that. But one area we don’t support is auctioning the vehicle after 21 days,” he said in a Citi FM interview.

Mr Amoah urged the authorities to reconsider auctioning the vehicles and instead give owners more time to retrieve them, subject to the payment of the relevant charges.

“We think they have to take a second look at the word auction because nobody will intentionally decide to leave his vehicle on the road. If it is being towed to a safer place, we think that the number of days the vehicle will spend there, if you have a fee that the owner will pay, that is fine. But to auction the vehicle, we think that will not help our business,” he added.

The GPRTU maintains that the objective of keeping roads clear of broken-down vehicles can be achieved through towing and storage charges without putting transport operators at risk of losing their vehicles.