Speaking in an interview, the Union’s Public Relations Officer, Mr Imoro Abbas said they are currently engaging the government on what percentage the upward adjustment should be.
“We have no choice because we initially asked the government to scrap some of the taxes but they were not prepared to do that”, he complained, stressing: “So, we have no option but to come out with an upward adjustment to lorry fares”.
He further noted that the leadership of the GPRTU will meet the government again since disagreements over the percentage increase have resulted in most of their meetings ending inconclusively.
“We asked for a 30 percent increase; finally, we were down to 20 percent but government stuck to 10 percent of which we asked for more”, he said.
“Fortunately for us, there has been another upward adjustment of prices at the fuel pumps. So, next week, we are going back and with what is happening now, when we go into the meeting, we will get a good rate for our people,” he noted.
Meanwhile, the Private Commercial Transport Operators group had declared that effective Friday, February 18, transport fares would be increased by 30 percent.
According to the transport owners, the decision is to save transport businesses from collapsing given the frequent upward adjustments in fuel prices.
