The National Transport and Safety Authority is back on the roads 10 months after President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered for the agency to be withdrawn from all roads.
In circular issued last week by the Interior ministry, the road safety agency has been directed to join the traffic police department in a new crackdown that commenced on Tuesday.
The decision was reportedly arrived following consultations with the Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i where concerns were raised over the rising number of accidents.
NTSA data shows that the total number of traffic accident fatalities shot up by about 15 percent since last year, which had 2021 deaths.
At least 2,326 people have been reported to have died on Kenyan roads in the last 12 months.
As of Tuesday and Wednesday, NTSA officers had been deployed to conduct impromptu checks on all motor vehicles along the Nyeri – Nairobi highway.
ALL ENFORCEMENT
However, NTSA will work in a different capacity from the past and the Nation has since learnt that they have been instructed to leave all enforcement work to the police.
The role of NTSA in the fresh crackdown expected to last until January will be purely technical support, sources within the agency have revealed.
“Our job will only be to guide the police on the offences and traffic malpractices to look out for. We cannot arrest or order a vehicle to stop. NTSA is only there to support,” an official at NTSA who declined to be named as he is not authorized to address the media, told the Nation yesterday.
In January, President Kenyatta issued a directive ordering all NTSA officers off roads owing to a rise in road accidents.
The agency was at the time under pressure due to the high road fatalities and was also being accused of corruption and impunity in their enforcement duties.
The President had at the time said that traffic police officers should take over duties on Kenyan highways.
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