Traffic on the busy Eldoret-Malaba Highway was on Tuesday morning brought to a standstill after truck drivers protested and blocked the road over unfair cess charges by the Busia County Government.
Speaking at the Malaba border in Amagoro, the agitated truck drivers maintained that the County Government of Busia was trying to force them into paying the cess fees without consulting them.
They also blamed the county officials for overstepping their mandate with the new charges as the Eldoret-Malaba Highway was under the management of the Kenya National Highways Authority(KENHA).
''The county is tolling us money that we do not know the reasons for and they started the exercise abruptly in the morning. We do not know why they are taxing us with that money, this road is a trans-highway,’’ Salim Bahaba, a truck driver, told the media.
''This road here, there are no proper sanitary facilities, there are no parking spaces yet they are coming in with the new taxes. This is why we are closing this road and not even a bicycle will be passing here,’’ another driver added.
The drivers parked their vehicles on the road vowing not to allow any traffic flow until their demands to have the county backtrack on its earlier directive could be met.
Meanwhile, clearing agents at the Malaba border post have blamed the County government of Busia over fronting rules without due public participation from the concerned stakeholders.
This latest development comes just a few hours after the County government of Busia had issued a directive informing the truck drivers that they will be subjected to a toll of Ksh400 per truck for using the busy border.
However, the Kenya Transporters Association Ltd (KTA) asked all the truck drivers using the route not to comply with the directive. KTA argued that the County did not have the authority to impose tolls on roads.
''The Kenya Transporters Association Ltd (KTA) strongly advises all transporters using the following roads to not pay any county truck entry fees imposed by Busia County for the following reasons,” part of the notice read referring to the Nairobi-Malaba and the Nairobi-Kisumu-Busia highways.
''These roads are under the jurisdiction of the National Government. The Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) is responsible for their maintenance and operation. County Governments have no authority to impose restrictions or levies on these national roads,”
The Busia County Government had not responded to the matter while KeNHA was yet to issue an update on the situation by the time of publishing this article.
