The Road Safety Association of Kenya has called for the revocation of all driving licenses issued by the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) in the past six years.
Speaking on Tuesday after a weekend carnage that left at least 20 dead, the association's national chairperson, David Kiarie, claimed that most licenses issued during that period were given to people who did not attend driving school and just paid for them.
As such, he called on the government to cancel all the licenses and have the drivers go back to driving school before they can be given legitimate ones.
"In these six years, 80 per cent of the licenses that have been issued have been given to people who did not go to school, and this is the reason that you are seeing this carnage and deaths are increasing on our roads," he claimed.
"So, we are requesting that if you took your license in the past six years, they need to be cancelled and go back to school so that we can get genuine people who have gone to school and know what driving a vehicle entails."
Kiarie accused the regulatory authority of selling licences for Ksh6,000. He cited a fatal accident that left 16 people dead as an example, arguing that if the Subaru driver had been properly trained, he would have yielded to the matatu, preventing the collision with the lorry.
"This tells you that the driver bought a license, and that is something that we have reported. Somebody who has gone to school knows to give way, and when such a scenario happens, you know that it is important to just give way," he stated.
He also raised concerns over claims of about 1,200 vehicles going uninspected and instead paying Ksh6,000 to remain on the roads, translating to Ksh7.2 million allegedly shared by higher-ups.
This concern comes just a day after the Long Distance Drivers and Conductors Association (LoDDCA) also blamed the authority for looking the other way and not enforcing the NTSA Act.
In a statement after the two accidents, LoDDCA claimed that corruption had flourished at NTSA, with some drivers obtaining licenses without even basic knowledge of the Highway Code.
"The deaths of 20 Kenyans in just two days are not isolated tragedies; they are the inevitable result of NTSA’s failure. Every delay, every ignored reform, every leadership lapse translates directly into lost lives," LoDCCA claimed.
On Saturday night, an ambulance belonging to St Mary's Mission Hospital Elementaita crashed, leaving all six on board dead at Kimende. A few hours later on the same highway, a crash involving a 14-seater matatu and a trailer left 13 dead on the spot. The death toll has since risen to 16, most of whom were from the same family.
LoDDCA also faulted the make of both the 14-seater matatu and the ambulance, claiming that they were modelled for cargo transportation, not for passengers.
