Josephine Christopher is a senior business journalist for The Citizen and Mwananchi newspapers
Mwananchi Communications Limitted
Dar es Salaam. Tanzania’s ride-hailing sector remains in the early stages of electric vehicle (EV) adoption, with penetration below three percent of trips, compared with about 20 percent in Kenya, highlighting a widening regional gap in the shift towards cleaner urban mobility.
The disparity was discussed on Thursday, May 28, 2026, during the Bolt Tanzanian Mobility Dialogue 2026, part of the Mwananchi Thought Leadership Forum held here.
Themed “Sustainability, Trust & Growth in Africa”, the forum concerned government officials, private sector actors, and industry stakeholders to examine the future of digital transport, regulation, and platform-driven economic growth.
Bolt East Africa general manager, Mr Demetrius Kanyankole, said Kenya’s faster transition has been driven by infrastructure development, including charging and battery-swapping facilities, as well as fiscal incentives such as zero VAT on electric vehicles, which have encouraged investment in the sector.
He said Tanzania is still laying the groundwork for similar adoption but noted ongoing engagement with government and policymakers to improve market readiness.
“We are still working with the government, and our role as investors is to share market trends, prospects over the next five to 10 years, and what needs to be done,” he said.
Mr Kanyankole added that while ride-hailing may appear easy to enter, it is in fact a capital-intensive sector requiring sustained investment to maintain service reliability, driver availability, and customer experience.
He said ensuring services such as short waiting times depend on maintaining thousands of active drivers on the platform and continuously balancing incentives across the ecosystem, with Bolt investing more than Sh3 billion monthly to sustain operations.
From a regulatory perspective, the Land Transport Regulatory Authority (Latra) director of economic regulation, Mr Abdallah Mhagama, said the expansion of digital mobility platforms has strengthened oversight capacity, particularly in driver identification, safety monitoring, and service regulation.
He said ride-hailing has become a key source of income for many drivers in Tanzania, with the sector increasingly shifting from supplementary work to primary livelihoods.
“In Tanzania, ride-hailing is not just a side job, for many, it has become a primary source of income,” he said, adding that Latra’s core mandate remains consumer protection and ensuring fair pricing in a rapidly evolving market.
Mr Mhagama said the regulator has had to adjust fare floor pricing mechanisms in response to fuel price volatility and market conditions, describing it as an ongoing balancing act between affordability for users and sustainability for drivers.
Tanzania Private Sector Federation (TPSF) senior policy analyst, Ms Lois Kassana, called for predictable policy frameworks to support investment, stressing that regulatory certainty is critical for emerging sectors such as digital mobility.
She said structured consultation before policy changes, including regulatory impact assessments, is essential to avoid unintended disruptions, while emphasising the need for fair transition periods for market players adapting to new rules.
Sahara Ventures chief executive officer, Mr Jumanne Mtambalike, said the next phase of transformation lies beyond ride-hailing platforms, towards deeper integration of technology into financial and social systems.
He said digital transformation should be understood as embedding technology into core economic systems, enabling informal workers such as boda boda riders to access insurance, savings, payments, taxation, and social security within a connected digital ecosystem.
“This shift represents a move from a gig economy to a platform economy. That similar transitions are already visible in markets such as Nairobi,” he said.
He added that regulators will need to evolve into ecosystem facilitators to support innovation, warning that overly rigid or premature regulation could slow the growth of emerging digital industries.
The discussions highlight a central policy and investment challenge for Tanzania: how to scale digital mobility and accelerate clean energy adoption while maintaining affordability, regulatory balance, and inclusive economic growth in rapidly expanding urban markets.
