Remove ban on second-hand tyres
Members of the Association of Second-hand Tyre Dealers have called on the government to remove the ban on the use of second-hand tyres in the country. They have, therefore, threatened to hit the streets in demonstrations and resolved not to give the government "a break" until their demand is met.
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A bill banning the use of sub-standard tyres in the country was passed into law by Parliament in 2012 as one of the means of ensuring road safety in the country.
However, at a news conference in Kumasi, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the association, Mr William Sarpong, noted that about 90 per cent of tyres used on the road in the country were second-hand.
He said the second-hand tyres industry employed thousands of people in the country and the ban, if not removed, could cause major unemployment problems, saying that second-hand tyres were being used in the farming and mining sectors also.
Apart from that, he also said the ban, if not removed, would place a huge financial burden on the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs), which had been taxing the second-hand tyre dealers.
He blamed authorities of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) for not consulting members and the executives of the association before making the recommendation for the bill to be passed into law. Mr Sarpong debunked the notion that second-hand tyres were responsible for road accidents and stated that never had it appeared before in the annual statistics of the NRSC that road accidents, in even a quarter of the year, were caused by used tyres.
He added that though a few people and government officials were using new tyres, they also got involved in road accidents. He rather said most of the road accidents had been attributed to human error and that banning second-hand tyres would not curb road accidents.
He pointed out that second-hand tyres were being used in the advanced countries and mentioned Italy, Spain and Britain to buttress his point and stressed that a developing country such as Ghana was not above the use of second-hand tyres.
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The chairman of the association, Mr S. A. Adomako, called on members of the association to calm their nerves and continue their business till the government resolved the impasse.