Mr Ricketts-Hagan has called for the legalization of Pragyia
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• “Pragyia” should be legalized
The Member of Parliament for Cape Coast South, George Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, has called for the legalization of ‘Pragyia’ stating its benefits.
According to the Cape Coast South MP, tricycles, when authorised, will serve as a source of income for the people within the community.
“The pragyia riders are trying to be entrepreneurs at the lower end of the job market and instead of rendering them illegal, we can make it a useful transport business to serve the community at cheap prices but a safe mode of transport. Some of them can be equipped with the same technology as Ubers to be booked by passengers to reduce congestion on our roads,” he noted.
He justified that some of these riders come from deprived and disadvantaged societies and have never been trained or educated on road signs and how to ply the roads properly.
Ricketts-Hagan thus suggested owners of these commercial tricycles need to be educated to “reduce the number of accidents that they get and not just close them down and make thousands of youth, perhaps, with little education, unemployed.”
Though he admitted that the commercial operations of the riders are currently illegal, the legalization and regularization of pragyia businesses have become a necessity because of the thousands of jobs that it has created for the youth in the country.
Citing his region as an example, the MP also noted that the riders fill a transportation gap in transporting people and goods in various towns and cities over short distances.
“In Cape Coast alone we have about 2,000 pragyia providing jobs for about 2,000 of our youth, who otherwise would have been on the streets unemployed. Why do you think crime is reducing on our streets? Because those who would have turned criminals are working, pragyia is providing them livelihood, so they don’t need to steal to eat, which gives dignity to our youth.”
He added, “You may trivialize and denigrate pragyia as a business and a job but you will be wrong. After all, nobody has created jobs for these youth, as an alternative, therefore you cannot close done the one they have created for themselves from their own sweat. The youth are already responding to the call that the government’s payroll is full, so they should be entrepreneurial. Better jobs should be created; of course, this may be a low-end job for you but for the youth from the ghetto, it is a decent job and puts food on the table.”
He thus urged national and local governments and all stakeholders to come together and come up with an effective way of managing and policing the pragyia business to ensure safety on the road and of citizens.
He reiterated the need for government to change the laws governing motor riders.
Mr George Kweku Ricketts-Hagan made these comments during the first-ever Pragyia Summit he organised in Cape Coast.
The event educated riders on how to improve their operations, minimise accidents, indiscipline and root out bad behaviour including child riders (below the age of 18 years).