Making MMT more viable

In the case of OSA, commuters associated its buses with numbers and the numbers on the buses determined their destinations.

Lately, the Metro Mass Transit (MMT) Company has filled the void, albeit with a lot of challenges, while Inter-City STC is virtually on the verge of collapse.

The MMT has been providing the transportation needs of many city dwellers, as well as those in rural communities who want to reach the urban and marketing centres with their goods and services.

It is unfortunate that our attitude to public institutions and property in the country is not the best, giving meaning to the saying that when government owns, nobody owns, so nobody takes responsibility for public property.

By those actions, many of our public institutions have collapsed or been put on divestiture, leading to the retrenchment of workers.

Many of these decisions have led to public resentment against our governments, although the present situation was not directly caused by the regimes but the people in whose care those organisations were placed.

The entire transport system in the country is not operating to the satisfaction of the people as the country has no airline; the railway network is struggling, while the public road transport sector requires the injection of more capital to serve the public better.

The OSA, CES and STC collapsed largely because of practices that undermined the revenue generation of the companies.

The Daily Graphic knows that the health of the MMT may not be the best now but the proactive stance of the management of the company may help avert the fate that befell other transport companies.

We must, therefore, commend the MMT for setting up a unit to monitor and apprehend inspectors, conductors and drivers who indulge in corrupt practices that undermine the revenue generation of the company.

We appeal to the management and workers of the MMT to show more commitment to work and exhibit integrity in the discharge of their duties.

But the signals from the balance sheet of the MMT indicate that all is not well with the company.

The Managing Director of the MMT, at a meeting with inspectors of the company in Kumasi, painted a picture of gloom and doom. While expressing concerns over the revenue situation of the company, he said in 2012 it generated GH¢14 million as revenue, which reduced to GH¢11 million in 2011 and  GH¢9 million last year, at a time management had increased the fleet of MMT buses from 846 to 1,046.

The Daily Graphic urges Ghanaians in control of public institutions to change their mindset in order to help expand the operations of those companies to generate more jobs and wealth.

We plead with all the workers of the MMT to work hard to sustain the only public transport company to help in the easy movement of people in the country.