We’ll protect Uber taxi drivers - Interior ministry

Mobile tax-hailing app Uber. FILE PHOTO

What you need to know:

  • Uber users rely on a mobile application accessible on smart phones to organise taxi trips.
  • Clients submit requests and are in turn linked to taxi owners who have registered their vehicles on the network.
  • In Nairobi, Uber promotes its services as reliable and affordable.

The Interior ministry has vowed to protect taxi drivers facing threats from rivals for embracing technology offered by Uber, an American international mobile taxi hail company. 

“In the last couple of days there have been incidents of criminal gangs attacking some taxi operators in certain parts of Nairobi.

“The police have launched investigations into the cause and nature of these attacks and will ensure that those behind the attacks will face the full wrath of the law,” said the ministry’s spokesman Mwenda Njoka.

Uber users rely on a mobile application accessible on smart phones to organise taxi trips.

Clients submit requests and are in turn linked to taxi owners who have registered their vehicles on the network.

But the technology is facing problems in Nairobi because conventional taxi drivers say it has cut costs and is driving them out of business.

Mr Njoka, however, said action would be taken against the drivers.

He said: “The government takes this opportunity to send a strong word of caution to those behind the attacks that such barbaric acts cannot and shall not be tolerated.

“Business rivalry should never be settled through attacks and intimidation but rather through the established legal mechanisms of resolving disputes.”

‘RELIABLE AND AFFORDABLE'

In Nairobi, Uber promotes its services as reliable and affordable.

It says: “Whether you’re headed to Westlands, Gigiri, or to JKIA, the Uber app connects you with a reliable ride — from low-cost to premium — in minutes. One tap and a car comes directly to you. Your driver knows exactly where to go. And payment is completely cashless.”

Kenyan taxi operators are stunned by Uber’s cheap pricing model — which cuts by more than half what they have been charging commuters in central Nairobi – are said to have ambushed and stabbed four Uber drivers to death. But the technology firm says it is not aware of the deaths.

Unverified images of a damaged car said to belong to an Uber driver who was reportedly ambushed by taxi drivers along Valley Arcade in Nairobi while picking up a passenger by the local taxi drivers went viral on social media.

There were also images of purported screenshots, allegedly captured on phones of disgruntled drivers, discussing how to disrupt the service on specific routes.