Omar Ceesay, president of Gambia Transport Union, has doubled down on the need to regulate commercial tricycles in the country in order to solve future transportation problems.

Mr Ceesay’s comments come as some tricycles allegedly say they are stopped from plying the routes within the Greater Banjul.

According to the union’s president, the 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 came to my office affiliated with the union and we told them anything that is not law we should be mindful of TukTuk.

“Security matters and I believe even if we are going to allow the TukTuks to continue doing business, we need to regulate its capacity because taxi capacity is four passengers but they have about eight passengers aboard which is risky,” he said.

“And we have seen that on average the tricycle drivers 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  them with the security. Because we have seen tuktuk 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 continued.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba