According to the Minister for Transport, Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, about $100 million was secured as a loan from the World Bank for the BRT project,  but was not put to good use by the previous administration.

[contextly_sidebar id=”AYEm0FLOQnXJssjVgDzhZsrLaTEGF3Fp”]Speaking to Citi News after the President’s State of the Nation address, Mr. Asiamah said more Aayalolo buses will soon be deployed after the construction of a terminal at the PWD yard in the central business district of Accra.

President Nana Akufo-Addo, in his address, bemoaned the daily traffic jams and congestion in various parts of the capital, which he said was making Accra unattractive.

Mr. Ofori Asiamah also described the situation as unpardonable, and said his Ministry was working to correct the situation.

“The congestion in our city is something unacceptable which we need to work on. The World Bank gave us a loan of about $100 million for the Aayalolo buses and their attendant infrastructure. The infrastructure that they were supposed to put in place, they didn’t do it,” the Minister remarked.

He recalled that the current government had to go to “London to see HSBC, renew the loan and start the construction of the bus terminal at PWD… we cannot operate Aayalolo buses when they come to the city without having a bus terminal.”

“The dedicated bus lane that they were supposed to build from Adenta to the Central City, they have not been able to build it. Ask them where is the money,” Mr. Ofori Asiamah lamented.

The Quality Bus system (QBS), which is making use of the Aayalolo buses, was initially envisioned as part of a Bus Rapid Transport system, but the absence or lack of dedicated lanes meant it did not match up to that standard.

Most major roads to Accra have gained notoriety for having the city’s worst traffic jams.

Some of these roads include the Madina to 37 road, Circle to Achimota road, Ofankor to Pokuase road, and the Tema motorway – Tetteh Quarshie roundabout.

Efforts by previous governments to address the problem seem not to have yielded results as the traffic situation has not improved.

Some analysts have suggested a total review of the country’s transportation system with a shift from the construction of new roads to the implementation of policies that will encourage boarding of commercial buses and an efficient railway system.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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According to them, the Board must probe the structure and the mode of fuel distribution for the buses.

The Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Hajia Alima Mahama, gave the directive when she inaugurated the 17-member board yesterday [Monday].

“The key challenges I found with GAPTE was indebtedness and you would have to look at this.  Why this indebtedness, especially when it comes to supply of fuels?” Hajiah Alima Mahama

The new members were also tasked to to elevate GAPTE, understand the challenges the company faces and work to ensure improvement of the transport service in the capital.

“We want to inaugurate the second Board, the first Board contributed their quota to the establishment of GAPTE, and today, definitely MMDAs have changed, and new persons are coming on board, so we are here to inaugurated the second Board ”she said.

The Aayalolo bus system has been making losses since its inception in 2016.

Having been originally touted as the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), the Quality Bus System (QBS) was rather introduced, following the inability of the government to provide dedicated lanes for the buses, which had been a major selling point of the BRT.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast over the development, the road engineer, Ing Abdullai, was skeptical about the survival of the much hyped bus system.

To him, the system was not “well thought through” before it was implemented.

“If you look at the one that they are piloting now, the Amasaman stretch to Accra; it is absolutely impossible to operate such a bus system. The terminal that they are using now is very small located in the premises of the Amasaman police station. The rapid transit system ought to work in a location where there is a very good car park. If you look at the Amasaman road to Accra, we are restricted with two new district barriers. The road doesn’t have a room to maneuver when you are coming in the morning or evening with about 4 kilometer traffic. The system is not well thought through as at now.”

“I even think the one at Adenta en route to Accra is more flexible because of the lanes and the less restriction on it. The Adenta one has similar restrictions at some small sections. Like when you get to the Legon stretch it has three lanes and one of the lanes could be restricted for the buses.”

Apart from the lack of dedicated lanes for the buses, Ing. Abdullai noted that, Ghanaians were also not ready to embrace the bus system.

“There is no discipline, the roads are not even enough for the system,” he added.

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By: Farida Yusif/Citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The QBS, which started in October 2016, plying the Amasaman to Accra stretch, has been fraught with a lot of challenges, especially with the limited designated lanes.

[contextly_sidebar id=”tFTvAzVJfIEh2Y19WmyUhbzx3qEWXAWn”]Over 100 of the 245 Aayalolo buses imported into the country, were reported to be sitting idle since 2016, because other corridors which are supposed to be developed for the QBS are yet to be implemented.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Thursday, the GAPTE Communications Manager, Fred Tsidi said some government officials were expected to inspect the facility, located close to Madina on Friday.

“…So we are just ready for the Minister to come in tomorrow [Friday], to inspect the facility and after that, they will determine when we should roll out,” Mr. Tsidi stated.

45 buses are set to be deployed on the Adenta-Accra route, and it would be scaled up gradually, much like the Amasaman to Accra route, which started with 28 buses, but is now up to 58 buses.

The QBS also has plans to deploy from Kasoa to Accra, and is currently in talks with the Senya Municipal Assembly.

The Municipality has located a place around Kasoa where a construction company is used to keep its equipment.

“That is going to be the layover place for the Ayalolo buses. So with that, once we are able to secure that, then Kasoa should be able to roll out,” Mr. Tsidi disclosed.

Lanes’ needed to ensure quality

Mr. Tsidi also downplayed concerns that the Aayalolo buses were behaving like glorified trotros because they were not making use of dedicated lanes.

He insisted that the full benefit of the system will be realized if the encroachment on the designated lanes for the buses is halted, and the relevant government agencies, like the Ministry of Roads and Highways, will be key in solving this problem.

“They [government] would have to create those dedicated lanes for the buses to be deployed. Now if we have the buses sitting down there and if we want to assure people of the quality that we are promising, we need the dedicated lanes from the moving point to destination.”

The QBS was initially envisioned as part of a Bus Rapid Transport system, but the absence or lack of dedicated lanes meant it did not match up to that standard.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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According to the Chief Executive Officer of GAPTE, Sampson Gyamenah, women must embrace new opportunities hence the project to train female drivers.

Addressing the bus driver trainees, Mr.  Gyamenah urged the women to be serious with the opportunity given them.

“I am happy to note that many women have braved the storm and accepted the challenge by breaking many barriers in what was considered male dominated careers.”

“Having recognised that women to setup to up the table and accept new opportunities especially for the younger ones, Scania Ghana in collaboration with GAPTE, the Managers of the Aayalolo Bus Service has introduced this initiative to recruit and train female drivers for the Aayalolo fleet. The project aims at empowering women to become professional drivers to enable them become self-reliant and live lives of dignity. The Project is to empower these women with Economic and Social capital to become professional and Commercial Big Bus Drivers”.

For his part, Managing Director of Scania Ghana, Fredrick Morsing urged the ladies to corporate with the trainers and embrace the opportunity given them.

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By: Philip Nii Lartey/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori Atta who revealed this in Parliament on Monday said in all 200 of the buses will operate on compress natural gas while the 600 others will operate on diesel.

[contextly_sidebar id=”fwmFd6ggYpKUKp1oPlfYtyl8ucMlghco”]“…As part of Government’s effort to improve public mass transportation, the Ministry initiated processes for the acquisition of buses for the two Public Bus Companies. The objective is to improve the current bus fleet of Metro Mass and Inter-City State Transport Corporation (ISCT).”

“In all a total of 800 buses will be acquired. These include 200 Compress Natural Gas (CNG) and 500 diesel buses for the Metro Mass Transit and the remaining 100 diesel buses for ISTC,” he added.

Mr. Ofori-Attah made the promise when he delivered the mid-year budget review in Parliament on Monday.

This comes on the back of complaints by both companies of lack of buses.

The State Transport Company earlier said it was looking to acquire some buses idling under the Quality Bus System (QBS) system, popularly known as Aayalolo, to augment its fleet.

The Managing Director of STC, Nana Akomea explained that his outfit needed a minimum fleet strength of 150 buses but currently has less than 50.

“Despite slight difference in the configuration, it will be possible for us to look at some of them and see which of them can be deployed for the short haul… It is a matter of rethinking how to redeploy the buses that are sitting idle,” he added.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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Reports indicate that, about 197 out of the 245 Aayalolo buses imported into the country for the QBS, have not been used since 2016.

[contextly_sidebar id=”nV7j8rRN0uFhyjepFKEAKO7jTdFNTpqH”]The situation has led to low patronage of the system resulting in the inability of the company to earn enough to cover operational costs.

The State Transport Company (STC), has even indicated that, it is looking to acquire some of the buses to augment its fleet

Addressing the media after a tour of some bus terminals, the Chief Executive Officer of GAPTE, Sampson Gyamenah, admitted that low patronage of the bus service since the programme commenced in 2016 has kept the company in the red.

“We still have a long way to go to be able to break even. We are ramping up the number of passengers and that is the real challenge. When we started the patronage was very poor. In December, we were doing an average of 1, 400 passengers a day.”

He however indicated that, the situation had seen some improvements in recent months revealing that they were transporting more than six times the number of people they used to daily.

“It has really picked up and we’re currently doing close to 9, 000 passengers a day on this corridor. We have challenges especially at our stops and our dedicated facilities, but with a lot of education and sensitization, we’re overcoming them.”

Having been originally touted as the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), the QBS was rather introduced, following the inability of the government to provide dedicated lanes for the buses which had been a major selling point of the BRT.

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By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The service, which commenced test operations last week suffered many setbacks including challenges with registering and insuring the buses as well as difficulty of drivers to operate the electronic information system in the buses.

The managers later suspended the service for days to retrain its drivers and revise its operating strategy.

The development cast doubt over the prospects of the service in the capital,  but the Chief Executive Officer of the Greater Accra Passenger Transport Executive (GAPTE) told Citi News, their simulation exercise with the buses will continue until they are ready to roll out the transport service fully in the country.

“It is an ongoing process and as and when we encounter a challenge, we bring in the technicians to fix them so we are hoping that by then [9^th October] we would have completed the exercises successfully and then we will be ready for the inauguration and the launch,” he said.

He added that “I cannot tell you for sure [when the testing will end] because it depends on what we will see during the exercise and how far the interventions in terms of remedial actions will go but hopefully sometime within October we should be ready for commercial operations.

No dedicated lanes for ‘BRT’, it’s now Quality Bus System

The Implementers of the transport service, GAPTE, earlier changed the name of the service which was previously known as the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) to Quality Bus System (QBS) because the buses are yet to have dedicated lanes. CEO, Sampson Gyamenah, admitted in an interview on Eyewitness News that there were currently no dedicated lanes, a critical element of any BRT system and instead called what is being implemented a Quality Bus System.

“We do not have a full blown dedicated lane for the buses so I will also hesitate to call what we are putting in place a BRT. It is called a Quality Bus System,” he said.

Service to be expanded

The newly introduced bus service is expected to be expanded to other parts of Accra to help transport passengers faster and more conveniently.

The bus will soon be operational on the Accra – Legon – Madina – Adenta stretch as well as the Kasoa-Accra stretch.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Although several cancers are caused by infections, Cancer Research UK says it is too early to add prostate cancer to this list.

The University of California scientists tested human prostate cells in the lab.

They found a sex infection called trichomoniasis aided cancer growth.

More research is now needed to confirm the link, they say in the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Sex infection

Trichomoniasis is believed to infect some 275 million people worldwide and is the most common non-viral sexually transmitted infection.

Often, a person will have no symptoms and be unaware that they have it.

Men may feel itching or irritation inside the penis, burning after urination or ejaculation, or a white discharge from the penis.

Women may notice itching or soreness of the genitals, discomfort with urination, or a discharge with an unpleasant fishy smell.

This latest research is not the first to suggest a link between trichomoniasis and prostate cancer. A study in 2009 found a quarter of men with prostate cancer showed signs of trichomoniasis, and these men were more likely to have advanced tumours.

The PNAS study suggests how the sexually transmitted infection might make men more vulnerable to prostate cancer, although it is not definitive proof of such a link.

Prof Patricia Johnson and colleagues found the parasite that causes trichomoniasis – Trichomonas vaginalis – secretes a protein that causes inflammation and increased growth and invasion of benign and cancerous prostate cells.

They say more studies should now follow to further explore this finding – particularly since we still do not know what causes prostate cancer.

Nicola Smith, health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: “This study suggests a possible way the parasite Trichomonas vaginaliscould encourage prostate cancer cells to grow and develop more quickly.

“But the research was only done in the lab, and previous evidence in patients failed to show a clear link between prostate cancer and this common sexually transmitted infection.

“There’s been a lot of research into prostate cancer risk and we’re working hard to piece together the puzzle.

“But there are still no known lifestyle factors that seem to affect the risk of developing the disease – and no convincing evidence for a link with infection.

“The risk of prostate cancer is known to increase with age.”

Prostate cancer is now the most common cancer in men in the UK – about one in nine men will get it at some point in their lives.

It is more common in men over 70, and there appears to be some genetic risk since the disease can run in families.

Source: BBC

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