It is now 6 years since the Digital Taxi Business was introduced in Kenya.
For the last 6 years the business has operated without any government regulations and no proper legal guidelines on how the stakeholders in this business should operate and lack of unity among leasership.
The taxi business has three major stakeholders namely; the car owners, the driver and the digital App Owners. However, for the past 6 years, the business Operation model rules and regulations have been set by only on e stakeholder: the digital app owners.
The app owners have dictated the prices, pricing models, commissions, cars to onboard on their platforms and even some have dictated which laws can govern the operation.
This skewed models of operation has led to massive losses to car owners and drivers because of extremely low prices and very high commissions and misclassification and categorization of cars forcing car owners to sell high quality cars to buy low engine cars as precondition to operate on the apps.
As we all know, this oppression has been led by major leading companies namely: UBER, BOLT and LITTLE CAB.
In July 2019, we had an 11 day strike which led us to the Ministry of Transport and later to the Senate. W went around ten major towns in Kenya to collect views from car owners and drivers on how they wanted the industry to run.
However, Almost 2years down the line the draft regulations drafted by NTSA and forwarded to parliament are still stuck at Parliament.
Therefore, as drivers and car owners under the banner of E-HAILING TRANSPORT KENYA, we have gathered to announce TAXI INDUSTRY SELF REGULATION.
On 15th March 2021, we invited all Digital App Operators in Kenya to come an the table for us to discuss the business. We gave ourselves 14 days to engage.
At the expiry of the the 14days, we extended the period and as you can recall today is 12/04/2021.
We therefor here to announce that out of the many apps operating in Kenya including the foreign one, only one company, MYRIDE PAP LIMITED came on the table for engagement.
we are therefore here today to sign a working agreement between the Drivers, Car Owners and MYRIDE PAP LIMITED.
AGREEMENT
- MYRIDE PAP prices, pricing models shall be discussed and agreed on with drivers and car owners as true business partners.
- MYPRIDE commissions shall not be more than 15% of the trip fare and shall be discussed and agreed on by both parties.
- DRIVER DEACTIVATIONS MYRIDE PAP LIMITED shall form a joint disputes resolutions committee with the driver community to listen to all disputes between drivers, car owners, customers and MYRIDE. And that no driver shall be deactivated without being heard and given a chance to defend himself.
- JOINT COMMITTEE MYRIDE PAP LTD shall form a joint committee made up of drivers and car owners to address issues affecting the industry
This will include all drivers’ welfare issues including social welfare
This will ensure all drivers and car owners are represented and involved in all decisions affecting them in this business
Finally, it is important to tell our members that MYRIDE PAP is a fully Kenyan local company and this agreement is hereby signed and governed by the laws of the republic of Kenya.
