Auto-Rickshaw Repair, Servicing and Maintenance for Youth-in-Entrepreneurship in Kumasi

Abstract

Knowledge and skill acquisition is a driver to the socioeconomic growth of a country, yet economic challenges, rapid urbanization, and migration have contributed to youth unemployment in Ghana. The introduction of auto-rickshaws in 2015 has increased access coverage to transportation, augmented existing public transportation, and created avenues for both operators’ and mechanics’ employment through co-ordinated skill development actions to empower youth-in-entrepreneurship. However, these have not been fully utilized and developed by the Government. The study seeks to identify basic needs of auto-rickshaw mechanics in establishing a sustainable repair and maintenance enterprise, identify challenges confronting auto-rickshaw mechanics, and analyze activities of the youth who repair, maintain, and service auto-rickshaws within the formal and informal sectors for sustainable enterprises. The study is underpinned by both resource-based and human capital theories: education and apprenticeship bothers on human capital theory, while entrepreneurial experience, shop space, business duration, and so on projects the resource-based theory. Questionnaires were administered to 237 auto-rickshaw mechanics and interviews were conducted for some selected auto-rickshaw mechanics to investigate challenges in the business in the Kumasi Metropolitan Area through a clustered and systematic sampling technique. Data analyzed using SPSS v.26 indicated a very youthful auto-rickshaw mechanic population with low educational level that operates without licensed garages. About 68.8% of the mechanics possessed some form of apprenticeship training, though they are not specific to auto-rickshaw repair and maintenance. Further, 71.7% auto-rickshaw mechanics do not keep records of their activities and there is a general lack of entrepreneurial skills among them. Lack of financial support from financial institutions was found to be a major challenge. The binary logistic regression model retained and confirmed six out of the seven predictors, including sex, age, education, marital status, duration of repairs and/or maintenance, shop space, tools and equipment, and mechanical training, as significant contributing factors to entrepreneurship training offered to enterprises within the Kumasi metropolis. The study recommends the urgent need to upgrade the technical and entrepreneurial skills of auto-rickshaw mechanics through the establishment of targeted and result-oriented training centers for better efficiency. The authors further recommend financial institutions to consider giving financial support to auto-rickshaw mechanics to help sustain their businesses.