Youth in Kpedze Cash In On �Okada� Business

Many young boys in Kpedze in the Ho West constituency in the Volta Region are engaged in the use of motorcycles as taxis in the transport business popularly known as �Okada�. While some of them make as much as GH�50.00 through long journeys, others who ply their trade within the community garner between GH�15.00 and GHC�20.00 a day. Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview at Kpedze on Friday, Mr. John Adjetey, one of the riders, said he charged passengers between GH�0.30 and GH�0.50 within the town and between GH�2.00 and GH�5.00 outside the town. He said most of the motorbikes were owned by public servants working in the area who received their daily sales of GH�6.00 from the riders. Mr. Adjetey said through prudent management some of them had managed to buy their own motorbikes to engage more of the youth in the transport business. �We buy fuel and work on the machines anytime there are breakdowns and save a few Cedis for our own maintenance and our dependants.� He said the motorbikes were helping more people to conveniently carry out their duties within the area, so far as they could pay for the services. Mr. Adjetey said the business had also offered work to the youth who would have drifted to the cities for non-existent jobs and called on the government to encourage financial institutions to give out loans to youth groups as a way of curbing the growing youth unemployment.