Operators of commercial tricycles popularly known as “Mahama Can Do” have accused the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) in the Upper East Region of causing avoidable misunderstandings between them and personnel of the Ghana Police Service.
According to them, DVLA, the authority responsible for registering their vehicles, fails to register their vehicles as commercial ones thereby making the vehicles unacceptable by police for commercial purposes.
Speaking to Dreamz news, Aganah Christopher, Vice Chairman of the Association of “Mahama Can Do” operators inside the main lorry station of the Bolgatanga Municipality, said police often harass them over the number of passengers they carry. This, he said, is because the police say their vehicles are not meant for carrying passengers for commercial purposes.
“Usually when we go to register, they say our machines are not commercial and they are registered as private. When we are operating and the police see us, they use that as an advantage to extort monies from us or arrest us. A police man can stop you and start demanding about GHs 100 to as high as GHs 500,” he stated.
The use of tricycles for commercial was introduced as a module under the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) to create jobs for the teeming unemployed youth within the savannah ecological zones of the country and have since become the most preferred means of transport within the zones including the Upper East Region.
The laws of the country, however, prohibit using tricycles and motorcycles for commercial purposes.
Former President Mahama, whose regime introduced them for commercial purposes, promised during his campaign for the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections to legalize their operations should he win the election. But that was not to be as he lost the elections to the incumbent president whose government kicked against legalizing tricycles and motorcycles for commercial purposes.
