The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) has published a list of digital taxi-hailing firms licensed to operate in Kenya.
In a statement on its social media pages, NTSA said it has licensed only four firms to operate in Kenya as at Monday, October 31.
NTSA is seeking to licence digital cab hailing companies in the same way it does with matatus and buses.
“In carrying outs its mandate and in line with the requirements of the NTSA Transport Network Companies (TNC), Drivers and Passenger Rules, 2022, the following companies are licenced to operate as Transport Network Companies,” the statement read.
The four companies are Yego Mobility, Little Limited, Uber BV and Bolt Operations OU.
This comes even as digital taxi drivers continue to lament over what they term as non-compliance by the transport network companies they operate under.
On Friday, October 27, the drivers held peaceful demonstrations at the Nairobi Greenpark terminus in a bid to petition the Ministry of Transport and NTSA.
The drivers took issue with companies for offering discounts to customers, asking them to lower commission charged from current high of 25-30 % to 18%.
Uber charges a 25 percent commission per single ride, while Bolt and Little platforms charge 20 percent and 15 percent, respectively.
They argued that the taxi-hailing apps are yet to implement earlier agreements on capping commission charged on drivers which was to begin on September 20, 2022.
“It’s unfortunate that we are still operating with the same price yet the cost of fuel per litre has gone up in the last few months,” the chairman of Organisation of Online Taxi Drivers and Digital Taxi Association of Kenya Zachariah Mwangi said.
Bolt had acknowledged the complaints and noted tha they were working on offering them a better solution to the problem.
“We are aware of the drivers’ strike and we respect their right to peaceful demonstrations. The discounts that we offer ensure that the drivers are connected to a sufficient number of riders in order to make greater earnings
“These discounts do not affect drivers’ take-home earnings as they are covered by Bolt,” Bolt told Business Daily.
