Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i has said the government will keep tightening enforcement against Public Service Vehicles after the crackdown on matatus recorded 40,000 traffic offences. He said the aim is to push the sector toward compliance and reduce deaths on the roads during the festive period.
The remarks were made on Wednesday, November 22, 2018, during a public transport sector consultative forum in Nairobi. Matiang’i said the state wants to record zero fatalities over the holidays and will allow only compliant PSVs to remain on the road.
He warned that operators who fail to follow the rules will face impounding, grounding and detention of their vehicles at police stations. “This is not an exercise for a month or two. It will continue until we have only law-abiding people on the roads and compliance becomes our way of life. We are not ready to be woken up in the middle of the night that a vehicle has been involved in accident being driven by a 70 something year-old-person,” Dr Matiang’i said.
The CS said the transport sector needs urgent reform and added that the government would spend the next 12 months focusing on PSVs before turning attention to boda boda operators. He said the broader goal was to force order in a sector he described as a major contributor to accidents.
“We want to teach them to operate in an orderly manner as they are one of the major cause of accidents in the country. We all have to style up and follow the law or stay at home. This is not a gangland where you can operate the way you want,” he said.
Matiang’i also directed the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) to prepare a booklet listing all charges that non-compliant operators could face.
