The Okada Riders Association says its members will not accept the quadricycles offered to commercial motorbike riders under the CODA Drive initiative.
The President of the association, Michael Kofi Owusu, said this intervention is misplaced.
“The solution is to find ways and means to regularise our business,” he said on Eyewitness News.
“None of them is ready to use any car for anything because it is not about the car,” Mr. Owusu added.
The CODA Drive initiative is hoping to get commercial motorcycle riders to give up their motorcycles for a Bajaj Qute vehicle on a hire-purchase basis.
This forms part of processes to phase out the commercial motorcycle business also known as 'okada'.
Among the association’s concerns are that cars won’t solve the vehicular congestion challenges.
“You can’t be comfortable in this car… moreover, this will add up to the more slow-moving vehicles because they must also join the traffic and all that.”
Mr. Owusu also said the Okada riders do not have adequate training to drive cars.
“Even drivers who have gone through DVLA training have accidents. How much more we who have no training, and we just got up and are doing our own thing.”
He said these concerns were evidence of a lack of consultation from the government.
“Nobody had any stakeholder discussion with us. Nobody called us to say anything.”
Responding to Mr. Owusu, the Chief Executive Officer of the Coastal Development Authority, Jerry Ahmed Shaibu, said he was sure okada riders would embrace the CODA vehicles.
“As we speak, it is overly subscribed,” he said on Eyewitness News.
According to Mr. Shaibu, at least 70 okada riders had taken their cars home after the initiative’s launch on Friday, October 22, 2021.
He further urged okada riders to consider their safety and comfort when considering the CODA Drive initiative.
“Are you mined to die, or you are minded to live? Are you minded to operate in a more comfortable, safer environment than an environment that can give you death?” Mr. Shaibu said.
—citinewsroom
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