Omar Ceesay, president of the Gambia Transport Union (GTU) has called for the need to regulate commercial tricycles in the country in order to solve future transportation problems.
Mr Ceesay’s comments come as some tricycle riders said they are stopped from plying the routes within the Greater Banjul.
He said that tricycles need to be regulated for security reasons, as he insisted many of its drivers don’t have valid documents for transporting people and goods.
“We don’t go against tricycles, but we say whether they are within the law. And some people come to my office to affiliate with the union and we told them anything that is not lawful. We should be mindful of it. TukTuk.
“Security matters and I believe even if we are going to allow the tuk tuks to continue doing business, we need to regulate its capacity because taxi capacity is four passengers but they have about eight passengers, it is risky,” he said.
“And we have seen that the average tricycle riders are not Gambians and security wise that’s not safe, and it is bridging employment opportunities for Gambians. And many of them don’t have valid documents.
“So, that’s why we want to regulate security. Because we have seen tuk tuk have given lots of problems to countries like Ghana and Nigeria,” he added.
According to him, The Gambia’s law gives preference to Gambians to be drivers in the commercial sector.
“That’s a law because transport can create lots of employment and the transport sector is the highly employed sector in the country, because according to law the drivers are supposed to be Gambians,” he added.