Kenya Railways (KR) has announced an increment in penalties on individuals who either cancel or reschedule their Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) travelling tickets.
The move was made in order to discourage termination of bookings.
According to KR, passengers cancelling their booked trips would be deducted 30 per cent of the fares up from the previous 20 per cent.
They further stated that those seeking to reschedule their trip will have to forego 10 percent of their fare, this fee being introduced for the first time.
An economy class ticket on the Nairobi-Mombasa route costs Ksh1,000 while a first-class ticket goes for Ksh3,000. This means those cancelling trips will part with between Ksh300 and Ksh900.
“Rescheduling attracts a fee of 10 percent of the ticket price while refunding a fee of 30 percent of the ticket price. It should be done between 48-72 hours before the time of travel for individual and group bookings respectively,” wrote KR on its Twitter handle.
In February, the railway management firm banned the rescheduling of tickets in a bid to tame fraud at its trains stations.
The rescheduling and cancellation of trips were at the core of a ticketing fraud, which saw the police arrest three Chinese officials and four Kenyans who were behind the SGR ticketing scandal.
Investigators revealed that the scam involved creating refunds for tickets already issued to passengers onboard for each of the four trips and channeling the cash elsewhere.
Officials from KR raised a red flag on an unusually high number of refunds, triggering investigations that led to the arrests.
