E-Hailing drivers confront Uber over high commissions

Guest: Vhatuka Mbelengwa | E-Hailing Association services spokesperson

Africa Melane speaks to Vhatuka Mbelengwa of the E-Hailing Association Services amid rising tension in the e-hailing industry. Drivers accuse Uber of slashing earnings through high commissions and unviable fares, sparking protests in Johannesburg.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to your new day. This is early breakfast with Africa.
Milani Ehaling drivers across Johannesburg deciding to withhold their service yesterday.
They have an issue with commission rates that are soaring
up to fifty percent, trip fairs that are remaining stagnant
or even declining, an operator saying that they're earning far
less now than they are used to journey on the

(00:21):
line is Vatoka Belengui, a Ehaling Association Services spokesperson. Good
morning and welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Gooz, Good morning Africa, thank you for having me. And
before we jump intoo Ehaling, can I vote for PJA
powers please?

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Of course I will add your votes to that tally
without a doubt. Let's then start with confirming will Ehaling
drivers will they continue to withhold their service today?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Look, there is intention and commitment to ongoing disruption and
within the ehaling sector. The appetite and frustration within the
sector is that an auto and high and quite frankly, Africa,
we've been this diagnosing the problems in ehaling for a decade.
We need to just face the reality that we've got

(01:08):
a government that doesn't care. We've got a government that's
unmoved by the amount of people being killed in this industry,
in robberies and an accidents, but mainly in robberies. Are
the kind of robberies in Ehaling are cruel and they
are daily, they are normalized. We've made recommendations over the years.
We've had many protests over the years. Essentially the governing

(01:31):
party has allowed Uber to come in and exploit this
country and its children, and this content and its children.
I think we should rename the app Uber to amiss that, honestly,
because that's what employment is in that place, is it's
slave like employment.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
And yet people choose to get onto the app in
order for them to earn an income and to obviously,
you know, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Not a choice. A country that doesn't have jobs, that
doesn't have opportunities, and you know, it's not a matter
of a choice. People need to survive, people have to eat.
It's desperation. People go to Ehaling out of desperation. It's
most certainly not a choice. Our economy doesn't allow us
to call it a choice.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
What do you want done?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Then? We want the government to leadership. We want a
Department of Transport with a vision. We want the government
and the Department of Transport that's going to be intentional
about regulating this industry and putting some controls on organizations
like Uber and BOST and putting some controls and being
an authority. You know that our own Minister of Transport,

(02:43):
our own NECs, cannot even summon a database from them
to say who works for you, who's on your database.
Uber refuses to share those sort of details with them,
So our own government's got no clue what's happening in
that industry. So we can't keep sitting here and talking
about Uber when this is a country that has customs audience,
that has elected officials chosen by the people who are
committed to serving us. They're just simply not interested. We

(03:07):
can diagnose the problems in ehaling forever. We already have,
Afterca's spoken to you so many times, You've had me
on your show so many times. We've diagnosed it every way.
We simply have a government that does not care, a
ministry that does not care, that has no interest.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
All right, So how long will this current protest continue?
For what needs to happen before we start seeing the
ehaling services drivers returning to the roads.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
We hope what we hope will happen with some actual intervention,
and the reality is we can't stay off the road
for too long. People have many commitments, people have responsibilities,
and they need to try, you know, find a loaf
of bread at the end of each day. And these

(03:56):
are the issues that really often drive people back towards
having to work instead of remaining on strike, because ultimately,
you know, we draw inspiration from leaders who then want
to engage us and hear us and carry our mandates.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
None have shown that, and in fact, that happened over
today and apparently violence was the result, with an unconfirmed
report of even one vehicle being satellite in how ten yesterday.
And that's the warrier. I suppose the fact that if
I choose to go and drive and effectively ignore the

(04:32):
call for the protest section for all sorts of reasons,
that I'm placing my life and my passenger's life in danger.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Look, definitely, it's the dangerous industry, and criminality has found
its way. And whenever the strikes, criminality takes the opportunity
to then rob people more aggressively burn cars because they
are competitive areas. So you are going to see this.
This is the unfortunate reality. It's going to be a
very unsafe space. And drivers are upset. And these are
drivers that are very young. They are frustrated. They really

(05:02):
just want to contribute positively towards society and the industry
of transports and the many opportunities that are emerging, should
they be properly regulated, can impact our economies so positively,
can generate more revenue, can generate more contribution to UIs.
You know, we can have more technic, a greater tax space.

(05:24):
It's only our government cared to regulate it. You see,
regulation is not a foreign concept, it's not a new concept.
The difference is that we're asking you to regulate to
protect the masses, whereby regulation has been used to exclude
people from industries, to protect big capital, to preserve certain
industries and certain opportunities for certain people with masses amounts

(05:44):
of money. But inhaling is funded by us. It's funded
by siblings and families. We're buying cars, We're trying to
be productive. These are billions coming from the average home
in South Africa, and the average home lives below the
poverty life