The Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA) has today announced that anyone intending to operate a taxi moto business will have to operate under a cooperative. 

This move follows the suspension of four taxi moto companies. 

RURA suspended the operating licenses of four taxi moto companies for three months after discrepancies were found between the memberships lists they submitted to RURA and the Rwanda Development Board (RDB).

According to a RURA statement released today, the four were found to have complied membership lists fraudulently. The membership lists handed over to the RDB to obtain business licenses contained a fewer names than the list handed over to RURA to receive an operating license.

After investigations, the four were found to have created ghost members and RURA forwarded the names of the fraudulent companies representatives to police for possible prosecution. 

Following a new licensing framework that came into force in July 2013, RURA no longer gives operating licenses to individual taxi moto operators but only companies and cooperatives.