There is some good news for Cape Town e-hailing drivers who use the Uber and Bolt applications.
The City of Cape Town said on Monday that government has promised to start issuing operating permits to Bolt and Uber drivers earlier than planned.
The City will start issuing the much needed permits in early 2023.
The City was initially scheduled to restart issuing permits at the end of 2023.
It should be noted that a moratorium was introduced in February 2021. The main reasoning behind that was aimed at reducing the risk of an oversupply of drivers.
According to the City of Cape Town there was a huge surge in the number of metered-taxi operating licences in the Mother City.
Last year saw a major increase in licences, in 2015 there were 685 metered-taxi operating licences, in 2021 there were 4 300 operating licenses.
Organisations including the Uber Master Union and the Western Cape E-hailing Association said the permit backlog has led to a surge in the impoundment of e-hailing drivers’ vehicles.
On Thursday last week, striking drivers marched to mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis' offices in protest against the freeze.
According to various reports since early 2022, almost 2 000 vehicles without operating permits were impounded by the City of Cape Town’s traffic services.
Maxine Bezuidenhout, assistant Traffic Chief at the City of Cape Town, said 1936 vehicles had been impounded this year.
BUSINESS REPORT