News:
March 4, 2025
Mr Emmanuel Kwadwo Agyekum, the Minister of State in charge of Special Initiatives is walking the talk of government achieving the agenda of transition energy with the introducing of electronic bicycles in parliament which he said would eventually trickle to Ghana’s universities.
According to him a visit to Ghana’s parliament one would see Ghanaians driving their vehicles without looking at focusing on the transition energy that is catching up with the world.
“As I said during my vetting, our Parliament should be one of the ‘greenest’ Parliament in the world. What we want to do is to let most of the MPs if not all MPs to drive electronic vehicles to parliament. We have to make sure we are not using combustible engine vehicles in Parliament”.
In an interview with Ghanamps.com, he noted that it is the main reason why he brought in the electronic bicycles to Parliament House, “where we would not have people driving all over in Parliament with their big cars”.
He further added that this initiative is not only for Parliament, as the presidency also has some of the electronic bicycles and doing same in all the universities in Ghana. “I want the University students to move around their campuses with the electronic bicycle that would let them have easy access to wherever they want to go; they do not need to wait for trotro or taxi. They just have to get on their electronic bicycles to move to class and move around easily on campus”.
As to whether the electronic bicycle and vehicle idea is getting down well with his colleague lawmakers, he noted that it has not been launched yet, as he is awaits approval from the Rt. Hon Speaker Alban Bagbin.
Mr Agyekum disclosed that he is in talks with university of Ghana, Cape Coast University and in the next week or two he should be able to deploy some of the electronic bicycles to Valley View University; and assured that there is no problem with safety issues.
“I believe our university students are as smart as any university students in the world; you cannot tell me that a university student in the UK can use the electronic bicycle and that Ghanaian students cannot use it. It is very simple to use, like our normal bicycles you just need your balancing”.
“As we speak, we have more than twenty to thirty people who have downloaded the app and they have been using the electronic bicycle in Parliament before the speaker’s approval. If you ask the security personnel in Parliament they would tell you they use it.
He said we would be able to decongest the capital city with this initiative, assuring that “it is doable”.
“We can geo-fence Accra, so that if you want to move it beyond Accra, it would not move. Why should we be moving all these cars in Accra? There is so much traffic and it is high time someone changed the dynamics in our country”, he emphasized.
The Minister also stated that the government is seriously working on labour export as he had indicated that to parliament when he came before the Appointment Committee. “We would work out labour exports trying to get our bilateral labour agreements in place. We are going to train people to get the international certification”.
“Why should we see our nurses moving around without jobs when there is international demand for them? There are demands for social workers in the UK and everywhere in the World. So, why can’t we do it? He queried.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com