The controversy surrounding the new guidelines for the regulation of e-hailing taxi operations has now been put to rest following a meeting between the Lagos State Government and the representatives of the e-hailing firms in the state on Friday.
The meeting, which was held at the Lagos House, Marina and chaired by Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, was in response to the allegation by the operators that the state government was planning to clamp down on e-hailing transport operations with the new operational guideline.
It was also alleged that the new regulation was to be used to ban all e-hailing businesses similar to what was done to commercial motorcycles and tricycles.
Briefing the newsmen on the outcome of the meeting, Commissioner for Transportation, Dr. Frederic Oladeinde, disclosed that the stat e government and the operators had agreed to reduce the e-hailing operation fees by 20 percent.
He added that the meeting also unanimously adopted the new regulations, after the parties involved jointly reviewed and fine-tuned some of the contentious items in the framework, stressing that the new regulations were not initiated by the Government to extort the operators and drivers in the business but meant to regularise the ride-hailing operations in line with security measures.
According to him, “The meeting agreed that enforcement of the new regulations will now take off from August 27, 2020, instead of August 20, 2020, initially announced by the Government. By implication, the operators now have an additional seven-day extension to comply with the Government’s regulations”.