The ability to move safely and efficiently throughout the municipality is essential for the quality of life of residents and the ability of businesses to serve their customers. Kanifing Municipality is the largest municipality in The Gambia with a population close to half a million residents over a land area of 75.5 km2 with high population density adds undue stress on the municipality’s transportation infrastructure. The lack of safe, efficient and affordable public transit requires immediate attention. Kanifing Municipal Council (KMC) is committed to finding innovate transportation solutions to serve its residents.

Both KMC’s Strategic Plan, 2019-2022, and The Gambia’s National Development Plan, 2018-2021, emphasise the need for enhanced service delivery at all decentralised levels. The National Development Plan highlighted a key issue that “Rapid urbanization is creating a transport crisis in the Greater Banjul Metropolis”. This project will work towards resolving this crisis.

The National Transport Policy discusses the Formal Public Transport sector. In the National Transport Policy, the Government commits to playing the triple role of facilitator, regulator and enforcer while the private sector takes on operational responsibilities. It is very important to offer residents a formal public transportation service that they can be confident in. The Council is committed to offering transportation options that are efficient, safe and affordable for the residents of the Kanifing Municipality.

KMC has identified that there is a need to support youth entrepreneurs in the municipality. The Council wishes to create self-employment opportunities for youth in the transportation sector. The young people of the municipality are under-served in the banking sector. It is important to provide financial solutions that meet the unique needs of young people.

The Council is developing to partnership to facilitate a microfinance scheme for youth in Kanifing municipality in the transportation sector. This access to finance will enable young people to enter into the commercial transportation sector.

 

Objectives:

 

The objectives of the Youth Transportation Tricycle project include:

  • Provide youth with self-employment opportunities;
  • Relieve some transportation constraints in the municipality;
  • Ensure financial sustainability of the project; and
  • Promote financial inclusion amongst youth in the municipality.

Delivery Model:

 

The Council is proposing a partnership with a financial service provider (i.e. the Social Development Fund) to connect young entrepreneurs with a transportation tricycle that can be paid back over a period of approximately 12 months.

For the period of loan repayment, the financial service provider will own the tricycle and the youth will be required to make regular loan repayments based upon fare revenue generated by the tricycle. At the completion of the loan repayment (i.e. 12 months), the tricycle asset will be fully owned by the youth.

The proposed pilot scheme is for 15 tricycles across the Kanifing municipality.

The loan repayment is seen to be viable based upon current transportation tariffs. Under an assumed tricycle unit price of 175,000 GMD and a payment period of 12 months, the cost is 14,583 GMD per month (excluding interest). If the amount is divided by 25 working days, it means that the youth will need to pay back 583 GMD per working day.

The typical business model for yellow taxis in The Gambia is that the taxi driver must report 500 GMD per day to the owner of the vehicle. A major difference between the normal yellow taxis and the tricycle model in question is a capacity of 4 passengers compared to 6 passengers.

The Council is committed to working with the financial service provider to minimize the interest payments required by the youth, thus finding the lowest interest rate possible. Social Development Fund is proposing an interest rate of 10 percent on the 12-month loan. The collateral of the loan will be the tricycle. The loan product is already established and operational under the YEP mini-loan scheme.


Deadline: 18th Dec 2020