Lagos State postpones e-hailing regulatory compliance deadline

Lagos State Government re-adjusts the e-hailing regulation earlier sent out on the 7th August 2020.

This was after a three-hour meeting with e-hailing ride operators on Friday 14th August 2020. The stakeholders involved agreed on the newly introduced service charge on every trip made through e-hailing platforms like Uber and Bolt, among other guidelines.

The state government, therefore, announced the commencement date for the implementation of the new levies on operators to August 27, 2020. Recall that the new regulation for e-hailing taxing services was earlier scheduled to come into effect on August 20, 2020.

The new levies stated operating license and renewal for operators with less than 1000 drivers will now pay  ₦8 million Naira instead of the earlier stated ₦10 million naira. And operators with more than 1001 will now pay  ₦20 million Naira instead of the ₦25 million Naira they were asked to pay in the earlier released sets of guidelines.

This was contained in a document by the Lagos State Ministry of Transportation titled: Guidelines for Online Hailing Business Operation of Taxi in Lagos State 2020’ issued.

One of the major talking points in the proposed regulation was the plan to get data from all e-hailing companies.

The commissioner of transport, Dr Fredrick Oladeinde had this to say, "The data they will be supplying to us is going to be encrypted. We don’t want detailed data, just on movement, from point-to-point, it’s going to be encrypted so that all the information are taken off".

According to Oladeinde the data will ensure more road planning in the state. This will enable the government to deploy resources to places faced with congestion.

When asked about the vehicular permits and car models for operation. he mentioned that those guidelines were not meant for e-hailing companies, but for what they call "corporate cabs".

The Commissioner also stated that the state government has reached an agreement with operators to now charge ₦20 per cent per trip instead of earlier proposed 20 per cent per trip charge. He stated that the ₦20 per trip charges would be housed under the Road Improvement Fund.

Other adjustment made include:

• Drivers completing their documentation in the next 90 days starting from August 8, 2020
• Data collection from the e-hailing operators
• Road Improvement fund introduction

The adjustment is set to bring a little bit of balance to the regulation.

Like we pointed out in our previous report, only time can truly tell if this will work for the sector and the State as a whole.