Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has announced that commercial taxis in the country would be hooked onto a riding-hailing app to digitalise their operations.
Dr Bawumia, who made the disclosure at a conference at the Church of Pentecost Ghana on Wednesday, said the initiative was a result of complaints by some taxi drivers that their businesses were collapsing due to the rise of ride-hailing companies in the country.
That, he said, led the government to find a way out to “help our taxi drivers compete with the Uber drivers so that they can also be like Uber. So, we set the team to work. And so the task was to digitise the operations of our regular taxis, just as you have with Uber.”
Vice President Bawumia was happy that “work has now been completed. And in the next couple of months, we will be able to place our taxis at least in Greater Accra to start with, all on an Uber-like platform.”
“And you’ll be able to call them just like you call Ubers to your homes and all of that,” he stated.
Also, Dr Bawumia disclosed that processes to digitalise public and private transport sectors in the country by the end of the year were underway.
“There’s more coming… Trotros will come later on, VIP buses, Ayalolo, Metro Mass. The whole public sector is going to go and private sector transport is going to go on what we call a tap-and-go system.”
He said in England, they have the Oyster card that you travel with. “Ghana is also going to have an Oyster card before the end of this year.”
Rex Mainoo Yeboah, ISD
