Metro Mass Transit’s position
The news that the management of the Metro Mass Transit Limited (MMT) denies that the heartbreaking accident involving one of its buses at Kintampo was due to brake failure, makes one wonder if the officials know something that they don’t want to share with the public.
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As reported in the Ghanaian Times of Saturday, February 20, MMT’s Head of Operations in Kumasi, Mr Robert Berko, claimed that the bus didn’t have brake problems.
However, the Kintampo Divisional Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Desmond Owusu Boampong, told the Times that preliminary investigations showed that because of the faulty brakes, the driver was not able to even stop at the usual rest stop for the passengers to buy food and sped on.
Other accounts too have confirmed that the driver stopped earlier to see to the brakes.
The MMT bus travelling to Tamale from Kumasi on Wednesday, February 17, was involved in a head-on collision at Kintampo, Brong-Ahafo, with a cargo truck on its way to Accra from Burkina Faso with a load of tomatoes. Reportedly, 63 people, including the two drivers, are confirmed to have died in the accident.
Again, curiously, the MMT’s rejection of the brake failure came even before their own investigation of the accident, as well as that of the National Road Safety Commission’s. And strangely, nobody is talking about seat belts.
Is the MMT saying that there was no way that the bus could have developed brake failure on the way?
To me, the reports that the bus had stopped earlier for work to be done on the brakes are quite plausible. Thus I wonder why the driver didn’t simply call his management and ask for a replacement bus to be sent in view of the risk.
For instance, my experience as a passenger in the UK is that at the least sign of malfunctioning of a bus, the driver parks and informs the office about the problem; passengers are told to wait for a replacement bus to be sent.
One wonders what the MMT’s standard instruction to their drivers is, about what to do in such an emergency.
If the MMT management insist, even before their own internal investigation, that there was no brake failure, does this mean they know the cause?
Then why the need for any investigations?
(ajoayeboahafari@yahoo.com)
The Writer is a columnist (Thoughts of a Native Daughter) in a The Mirror newspaper: This article was published in the February 26, 2016 edition of The Mirror.