Firm slams violence, harassment
IN RESPONSE to the allegations against the e-hailing service, Gareth Taylor, Bolt regional manager for the SADC region, said they had engaged with the rape victim several times to arrange trauma counselling.
He said the implicated driver was detained for questioning on Monday and had since been charged with two counts of rape and transferred to the Johannesburg Central Prison.
“Bolt condemns any form of sexual harassment or violence of any kind directed towards e-hailing passengers because it believes that every South African has the right to move around without risk of harm, intimidation or coercion, or fear of harassment, death or injury,” said Taylor.
“As is the case with any instance in which a driver that uses the platform is the subject of an incident like this, the driver implicated is immediately suspended from the platform, until he is exonerated. Any driver that uses the Bolt platform that is convicted of a crime is banned from the platform for life.”
He said that all drivers had to present a Professional Driving Permit issued by local authorities to be accepted onto the Bolt platform. The permit was only granted to applicants who had obtained a police clearance.
In addition to the clearance, Bolt required additional criminal background checks which were performed by an independent provider, Managed Integrity Evaluation, an internal criminal record check.
Taylor said any person found to be using someone else’s Bolt driver account to connect with passengers would be permanently banned from joining or using the platform to connect with passengers. He said renting a profile to someone or from someone constituted an act of fraud.
“We have appointed forensic investigators to look into the issue of individuals using social media to rent out profiles and we will continue to engage with the various social media platforms to have these groups shut down. We continue to liaise with specialist SAPS units on this matter,” he said.
“Bolt, like all South Africans, shares everyone’s heartbreak and dismay at the scourge of gender-based violence that plagues our entire society.”