Vice President and ruling party flagbearer, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia says about 200 electric buses will be brought into the country as part of an intervention to reduce the cost of public transportation.
Dr. Bawumia made the announcement when he met members of the clergy during his Greater Accra campaign tour on Tuesday.
“In terms of public transport, the way forward to reduce the cost of public transport is to move to electric vehicles. The buses need to be electric buses. This year, we are working on bringing about 200 public buses,” he said, adding that this would help reduce reliance on unstable fuel prices that tend to drive the increases in public transport fares.
In earlier campaign tours speaking about this same intervention, he said once implemented, transport fares may be reduced by 40%, although there isn’t certainty that the project may be carried out this year.
Join our WhatsApp Channel for more news
“We are trying. We are talking to STC, Metro Mass, even VIP, they are all working towards Ghana moving electric. That would bring down the cost of transport very significantly.”
In Africa, some countries have already started implementing e-mobility for public transportation. In Kenya for instance, the government in 2022 introduced the first all-electric bus manufactured locally by a Swedish-Kenyan startup caleld Opibus. The following year, Nigeria’s Lagos State governor also imported electric bus fleets, saying that “Lagosians can say goodbye to high fuel costs and hello to cost-efficient transportation.”
