25 tricycle riders arrested for dumping waste on Tema motorway

The Tema Metropolitan Assembly [TMA], in collaboration with the Ghana Police Service, has arrested about 25 tricycle riders for dumping refuse around the Tema motorway.

When the riders were caught dumping refuse on the Motorway from their tricycles popularly referred to as ‘aboboya’, they were made to collect the refuse and take it to the Kpone landfill site in Tema to serve as a deterrent.

The Chief Executive of TMA Felix Mensah-La told Accra-based Citi FM that they will not tolerate such inappropriate actions.

“We as an Assembly cannot sit down for them to continue to dump refuse on the Motorway, so today, for instance, the special task-force together with the police arrested about 25 ‘aboboyas’ (tricycles). We are saying this to both the Aboboya Associations in Accra and those ones we have in Tema; they are in to do business and should do fair business with the Assembly. If they continue to behave this way we will take action against them.”

The Assembly hopes to engage the Ghana Highway Authority to ban these tricycle riders from moving on the highway as part of efforts to curb their illegal activities.

This arrest came after the Assembly observed that some refuse collectors have been disposing of refuse on the major highways in the area.

The major culprits in this act are the tricycle riders who according to eyewitnesses pretend to have a fault with their tricycles and end up offloading their refuse load at those spots.

This has left the Accra-Tema Motorway filthy and also smelling.