By Edzorna Francis Mensah
Government has procured one hundred (100) intercity buses at the cost of 17.5 million United States Dollars for the Metro Mass Transit Limited (MMTL) since 2017.
According to the sector minister, Kwaku Ofori Asiamah “a total of 100 new intercity buses have so far been supplied to the MMTL at a total cost of US$17.5million. This was financed by the Government”.
He again revealed that the government has also signed a contract with VDL Bus Roeselare for the supply of 100 intercity buses, spare parts, and training services.
Under the same contract, a total of 50 broken down VDL buses at MMTL would be repaired to augment the fleet.
He said “this Project is also being financed with a €25.49 million mixed credit facility from the Government of Belgium and Belfius Bank SA/NV.
He made this known on the floor of Parliament on 1st March, 2022 when answering a Parliamentary question post by MP Adaklu, Kwame Agbodza as to how many buses have been procured for the MMTL since 2017 and how much the buses cost and how it was funded.
The Minister again noted that, “as I speak, the first batch of 45 buses are in production and expected to be delivered by the second quarter of this year.
We are also pursuing other avenues to bring in more buses to revamp the operations of the MMTL. Currently, Value for Money Assessment is being undertaken for the supply of 300 Hyundai Buses from Korea and additional 200 buses from China”.
“We expect to add a total of 600 new buses within the short-medium term period”, he added.
The Metro Mass Transit Limited (MMTL) as we all know, was established with an objective to provide intra-city, inter-urban and rural-urban bus services in the country.
The policy framework for the financing and operations of the MMTL was that the Government will provide support for the acquisition of buses to enable MMTL to provide relatively cheaper and affordable mass transportation services to the public as a necessary social service.
Read More: Mass Transit Limited (MMTL)
