‘We Would Never Limit It To Nationality’: Bolt Says Nearly Half Of Rikba’s Driver Applications Weren’t Even Maltese
Bolt’s new Maltese-speaking ride option has triggered a significant debate (and mixed reactions) online, but the cab company has said Rikba was never about nationality.
“The people sharing yesterday’s internal announcement misinterpreted our intentions,” a spokesperson told Lovin Malta following this morning’s roll-out of the new service. “Rikba is for Maltese-speaking drivers, not Maltese drivers. We would never limit a category based on nationality.”
Noting they were “impressed” with the initial feedback from prospective drivers, the Bolt spokesperson said the company had received “hundreds” of applicants to join Rikba… and “a bit less than half of them were not Maltese”.
“There are Moroccan, Egyptian, Libyan and even Eastern European drivers who can speak Maltese,” they continued. “They can even take Maltese lessons. Language is a skillset you can always choose to learn, and our intention was to make private transportation more accessible to more people.”
The spokesperson continued to say Rikba was actually rolled out a couple of hours later than initially planned specifically because the company wanted to assess all the applicants and properly vet the process after the news “spread like wildfire” in the last 24 hours.
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Recalling moments when they would get complaints of people whose grandparents or elderly relatives would “feel uncomfortable” being in a cab with someone who they couldn’t communicate with in case of any medical emergency or payment by cash, Bolt continued to say that Rikba was born out of “a slight disconnect between what was being offered and the needs of these people”.
“It’s absolutely not discriminatory,” the spokesperson continued, telling Lovin Malta that Rikba is simply a “collective service to riders who might only speak one of two national languages”.
If anything, the spokesperson said, Rikba is “good for integration”, as it offers yet another incentive for non-native speakers to learn Maltese.
“People may have their own reasons to like it, and that’s their own business,” they finished. “But our aim has always just been to make it as accessible as possible, and to do anything to induce volumes to private transportation to reduce privately-owned vehicles.”
Will you be using Bolt’s Rikba option?
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