Truck and wheelbarrow pushing remains one of the available employment options for many unemployed young men in Ghana.
Services provided by truck pushers especially to traders and shoppers are indispensable because they provide cheap, readily available customised service.
Many areas are not accessible by vehicles, hence wheelbarrows and small trucks have become the most convenient and effective means of transporting goods from the markets to bus terminals and customers’ homes, shops, and vice versa.
The job opportunities provided by this avenue enable many of them, young and old to earn a living for themselves and their families.
One of these wheelbarrow pushers is Tutu Kojo Angmor who has been pushing trucks for close to two decades at the Agomanya market in the Eastern Region. A single father of four young boys, the paltry amount he earns in a day is spent on feeding, utility bills, school fees, health demands, clothing, and transportation, among others.
Luckily for him, he doesn’t pay rent as he and his family live in a house bequeathed to him by his late father, making him a landlord with three tenants.
The mother of his children abandoned the marriage some three years ago, leaving him with the burden of solely catering for them.
Sometimes helped by his children on Saturdays and on Wednesdays when they close from school, GhanaWeb met the 50-year-old with his third son, an 11-year-old primary school pupil carting goods at the market.
Detailing how his truck pushing business began, he said he was compelled to start the job after his father died and things became difficult for him.
“[I began this job after] my father died and I had nobody to cater for me,” he disclosed.
The 50-year-old told GhanaWeb that his typical market day starts at 4:00 am when he starts packing the goods of his customers who come from far and near to the market.
“I wake up at 4:00 am and begin carrying the goods of the traders to the market. I carry stuff such as fish, tomatoes, and other foodstuffs…I have four regular customers as well,” he said, adding that his day usually ends between 8 and 9 pm.
With an average income of GHC80 on market days and GHC10 on non-market days totalling about GHC800 a month, catering for his four children as well as taking care of himself is a difficult task.
“I make about GHC70 or GHC80 [on market days]. On non-market days, I make about GHC10 or GHC20 a day,” said Mr. Tutu. “What I make is what I give to the children for school. I give them GHC2 each to school every day,” said the father of four.
Being his only source of livelihood aside from his subsistence farming activities, he said he “manages” the little he realises from his jobs.
He described the relationship between him and his customers as mutually healthy. Whenever he’s dissatisfied about what they have to pay him for his services, he voices out his concerns to them.
Though he has no plans of stopping this job anytime soon, he said he is ever ready to quit if he receives assistance to get into another business.
“For now, this is what I’ll continue to do for the rest of my life. However, if anyone can assist me to open another business, I’m ever ready to accept that offer,” he said.
Describing the job as a difficult one, the truck pusher noted: “This job is difficult and one ought to be hardworking to earn what I earn. If you are lazy, you won’t get anything.”
His eleven-year-old son, Angmor Michael said he helps his father to load and push the wheelbarrow. Though he described the job as difficult, he nevertheless said, he’ll continue to support him.
One of Mr. Tutu’s customers, Ajoka Mary described him as honest, very hard working and she enjoys working with him. Having worked with him for the past five months, she said, “He’s hardworking, he has a good character. When you give your goods to him to cart for you, everything remains intact and that’s why I like him.”
Tutu Kojo Angmor going about his regular hassle in the market