Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki has put private vehicle owners using their cars for public transport on the spot saying they either stop or be wiped off the road.

Speaking while appearing before the Departmental Committee on Transport and Infrastructure, Kindiki said the vehicles are operating illegally as they are not licensed to ferry fare-paying passengers.

“There are people who run PSV businesses outside the law. There is a category of people doing PSV businesses but they are not licensed and certified as such,” he said.

“There is a Sienta group, and there is another one called Noah group, these are some of the problem areas we will clean out,” he added.

Sienta and Noah models of vehicles have emerged as alternative means of transport for long travel, particularly during peak seasons when matatus are in short supply.

They have become popular amongst some commuters owing to their affordability, convenience and the comfort they offer especially to passengers travelling to far-flung areas that are not ordinarily served by matatus or buses. 

Some of the vehicles are licensed to operate as taxis in urban areas but are not licensed by NTSA’s Transport Licensing Board (TLB) for long-distance travel as passenger-carrying vehicles.

The TLB license is issued and renewed based on the carrying capacity of a PSV.

Kindiki said the mode of operation of these vehicles is a key contributor to road traffic challenges, some of which have led to a surge in road crashes in the country. 

“So all those fellows who are running those businesses must stop immediately, if they don’t stop, we are going to get them out of the roads. That is part of the operational guidelines that we want to provide,” Kindiki said.

The CS said he has convened a meeting next week with his Roads and Transport counterpart Kipchumba Murkomen to work on the modalities.

Kindiki said between January 1 and February 29, 2024, a total of 4,608 people were involved in road accidents out of which 763 lost their lives.

He was responding to MPs’ concerns over a spike in road accidents which the CS acknowledged had become “a serious national security threat".

The CS said in just two months between January and February, there were 1,926 road accidents, translating to 32 road crashes daily in the period under review.

This, he said, represented a 28 per cent increase from 1,503 road crashes recorded over a similar period in 2023.

"This is unacceptable. Road traffic accidents are a National catastrophe that has been ignored for long and we must do everything possible to deal with it,” he said.

The CS said long-term interventions to arrest the catastrophe include ridding the roads of vehicles that are illegally ferrying passengers.