Lagos State Reviews Car-Hailing Regulation Again, Demand New Charges From Drivers

The Lagos State Government has reviewed the car-hailing regulation made after criticism trailed the decision. AllNews had reported that the state government made a policy to mandate car-hailing companies to pay for licence fee and also directed the drivers to pay 10% of every trip.

But after a meeting between the state governor, Babatunde Sanwo-Olu, National President of Professional E-hailing Drivers and Private Owners Association (PEDPA), Idris Sonuga, as well as representatives of Bolt, Uber and BMP Car, the state government reviewed the license fees downward.

The previous regulation had stipulated that car-hailing services should pay N10 million as license fee if they have about 1000 registered cars, while companies with over 1000 registered cars will pay N25 million as license fee if they intend to operate in Lagos State.

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Also, these car-hailing companies must renew their license annually. The renewal attracts another fee, mandating app-based services with 1000 cars and below to pay N5 million, while other services with 1000 and above registered cars compelled to pay N10 million yearly to the state.

But the state government has now cut the licence fee by 20% and cancelled the directive that drivers pay 10% of their daily trip revenue. However, the drivers were told to pay N20 per trip to Lagos state as “road improvement fund”. While speaking about the review, the Lagos Commissioner for transportation, Frederic Oladeinde, said, “Regulating is to create a level-playing field for different operators.

“When you have different operators in the market, it drives the price down and one of the agreements that we had in our meeting is to ensure that this road fund which we are charging goes to the operators, not the drivers." He said, adding that, "And we will be regulating the operators, so the government is there to ensure that we do not pass the price to the customers and that’s why we are regulating.”

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Oladeinde also clarified report that car-hailing drivers must operate new or three years old vehicles to lift passengers, "The idea of e-hailing companies using a car of three years is for what we call ‘corporate cabs’, and this has nothing to do with the e-hailing business,” he said.

He also revealed that the decision to request for data from car-hailing companies was to track the daily trips in order to account for the charges paid by drivers, "We are not asking the e-hailing companies to release detailed data. All we are asking from them is data for trip movement so that we can calculate the right charge and levy due to the government. This data is to be supplied every week." The new guidelines will take effect from August 27, 2020.