Making a hostage of road transport

Of late, the Shipping Minister has been very active in upholding the rights of those involved in the road transport business, to a point where a flagrant breach of ethics has been noticed. Through exercising his influence as a trade union leader, in this case of the road transport sector, he has lobbied hard — and quite successfully, as it appears — to have reckless bus and truck drivers absolved of responsibility for deaths caused on roads and highways.  His family owns a transport company too.It is inexplicable as to how a minister can be part of the government and yet put pressure on the government as a union leader. There is a clear instance of a conflict of interest here, a matter that should have drawn the attention of the administration and especially of the prime minister. Where a society expects ministers to work towards promoting the public weal, the minister has done the reverse. The transport sector is thus hostage to him and his fellow trade unionists.If all that the minister is doing is aimed at eliciting electoral votes for his party, it is terribly bad policy. In recent times, every issue related to road transport has gone against the public interest. Regrettably, it is election time pandering by the government to the transport workers. Admittedly, the transport front has a strong organised labour support. However, the votes of citizens across the country are, let us not forget, no less crucial than the votes of transport workers.