Uber Technologies taxi drivers in Cape Town are suffering xenophobic discrimination from traffic police and face lengthy waiting times for licence approvals, according to a spokesperson for the US company.

“Many of our partner drivers say they have been stopped by law enforcement officers who first determine that the driver is not originally from South Africa,” Uber Africa spokesperson Samantha Allenberg said by phone on Tuesday from the coastal city. They “then start demanding to see the Uber application on their smartphone,” she said.

South Africa suffered its worst outbreak of xenophobic attacks since 2008 earlier this year, in which seven people were killed. The violence took place in Johannesburg, the country’s most populous city, and the eastern city of Durban, both of which have Uber drivers. Some poor citizens see foreigners, mainly from other African countries, as competitors for jobs in a country with a 26% unemployment rate.

“This is a very strange allegation and this is the first time I am hearing of profiling such as this,” Sipheshile Dube, a spokesperson for the Western Cape Ministry of Transport and Public Works, which oversees the provincial traffic police, said by phone on Thursday.

“At all traffic stops specifically aimed at checking taxis, the City of Cape Town and the provincial traffic officers ask for all the relevant information such as drivers’ licenses, public drivers’ permits and vehicle operating licenses.”

City protests

Founded in 2009, San Francisco-based Uber connects drivers with passengers via mobile applications in more than 300 cities. The company, which doesn’t own the vehicles or employ the drivers, has taken business from existing taxi companies and was the subject of protests from competitors in Cape Town in January. Uber is loss-making yet is valued at about $50bn as it adds customers in new cities and tests new features such as food delivery.

Uber drivers have taken passengers on more than two million journeys in South Africa this year, compared with about one million in 2014, Allenberg said. The City of Johannesburg is considering regulating the service after complaints from taxi drivers in the city.

Securing provincial vehicle operating permits has also been a challenge for Cape Town’s Uber drivers, with some taking more than six months to process, Allenberg said. The company is expecting to hear the outcome of 143 out of 350 outstanding applications to the Western Cape Provincial Government on July 10, while a further 800 are awaiting approval by the City of Cape Town, she said.

Uber vehicles in Cape Town must be registered as a metered taxi, according to the Western Cape Provincial Government. Traffic officials have impounded over 200 Uber cars in the city during 2015 for not having the right permits.

“We are processing 143 application from Uber drivers, out of a total of about 800 applications for other taxi type vehicles,” Sephesihle Dube, spokesperson for the authority’s Transport Minister Donald Grant, said by phone. News24