Pragyia Riders and Mechanics Association declare sit down strike in the Ashanti Region

Pragyia Riders and Mechanics Association has declared a sit down strike in the Ashanti Region, which begins on Monday, July 31, 2023.

The strike is in the protest against decision taken by the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) to ban tricycles within the Central Business District (CBD).

Transport Department at the KMA on Monday, July 24, 2023, released a statement banning all tricycles, also known as ‘pragyia’ within the confines of the CBD.

The ban according to the Head of Transport Department, Randy Wilson, is to control growing concerns over the increasing indiscipline among some of the tricycle riders.

“It is also a step to decongest central business district and bring sanity in the transport business in the city,” Randy Wilson said.

The ban by the city authorities said is to take full force on Monday, July 31, 2023, but the National President of Pragyia Riders and Mechanics Association Ghana, Mohammed Alhassan, said the KMA decision is an attempt to render over 20,000 of its members jobless.

He explained to Otec News that the ban will also affect the developmental progress at the Zongo communities in the region where most of the pragyia operators come from.

Mohammed Alhassan noted that most of the operators are able to meet their ‘daily sales’ by plying their activities in and around the CBD, and any ban will financially affect them.

“With emergence of the activities of pragyia, most of the youth at Zongo communities, who were hitherto alleged to have been engaged in criminal activities, are making ends meet. Does the KMA want to increase unemployment in our areas,” he quizzed.

He also believed that the ban will affect transport activities in the city as their operations are highly patronised than any form of transport, due to its affordability and convenience.

The association wants the city to rethink about the ban, adopt ways to bring discipline among the operators and ways to decongest the area.