Transport Cupboard Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen on Thursday urged Kenyans to provide him extra time to discover a technological answer to the perennial street carnage within the nation.

Talking in Murang’a County the place he was the chief visitor at Our Woman Consolata Mugoiri Women Excessive College’s prize-giving day, the CS argued that he was coping with a multitude that has been piling up since 1963.

He mentioned that regardless of street accidents being “a matter of nice concern and I’m attempting my greatest, we’re already putting in spy cameras alongside our roads and we’ve got began…we all know the outcomes they’re giving”.

He mentioned President William Ruto’s administration was dedicated to streamlining the transport sector to grasp its full potential and contribute extra to nationwide improvement.

“It isn’t nearly street transport…as I’ve since met with the Kenya Affiliation of Air Operators and guaranteed them of my ministry’s dedication to reform the sector. Key to the reforms we’re pursuing is an aviation coverage, a grasp plan for Jomo Kenyatta Worldwide Airport and Wilson Airport,” he mentioned.

The CS lamented {that a} perennial drawback, the existence of which the federal government acknowledges, can’t be solved instantly, however as soon as the reforms are carried out “we can get prompt insights into what is occurring in automobiles…whether or not drivers are napping, dashing…or committing which site visitors offence”.    He mentioned the reforms are in a complicated stage.  

“We’re coping with an issue of predecessor after predecessor till the time when my predecessor John Michuki managed to deliver order to the sector,” he mentioned.

Nevertheless, he added that Mr Michuki (now deceased) didn’t handle to utterly clear up the sector.

“He managed to instil dignity on travelling…ensuring passengers are 14 in matatus, have security belts, no overcrowding…however didn’t achieve lowering street carnage,” he mentioned.

He mentioned the problem he was taking up was to seek out a solution to lowering street crashes that killed 3,609 individuals in 2023 and 649 within the first two months of 2024, with greater than 30 deaths within the final two weeks.

“It is just sufficient to have police and the Nationwide Transport and Security Authority (NTSA) on the street finishing up crackdowns…It is very important make use of expertise that offers prompt outcomes,” he mentioned.

 He mentioned the nation is looking for a public-private partnership that can provide you with an investor to place up cameras on the roads.

“You’re going to get prompt filings immediately in your telephones… It will in the end handle the problem of street accidents,” he mentioned.

He mentioned recklessness and negligence in sustaining automobiles was a serious explanation for street accidents “and the outcomes are devastating even to me, particularly when college students are going residence or again to highschool, I do not sleep”.

 He mentioned he’s all the time frightened when he will get a message from the NTSA, “I all the time worry it’s about an accident… I additionally attraction to our passengers to assist us sort out the issue of rogue drivers”.

He mentioned the federal government would quickly publish college transport laws that may decide how pupils and college transport shall be managed.

Mr Murkomen mentioned the federal government will demand accountability from college administrations on how they handle their drivers, automobiles and upkeep of buses.

He mentioned all college automobiles could be fitted with automobile telematics monitoring methods for real-time distant monitoring of the situation of automobiles and their drivers.

Nevertheless, the CS didn’t handle the problem of faculty kids counting on public transport to get to and from their academic establishments, particularly throughout opening, closing and mid-term breaks.

Boarding colleges, because of the number of instructions and distances, depend on public transport to get college students to and from college.

Mr Murkomen mentioned such clever transport methods are the panacea to street carnage and promised that the federal government will quickly announce the standardisation of the applied sciences to be put in within the college buses and be sure that they’re cost-friendly to make them reasonably priced.

He mentioned his ministry was working with the Ministry of Training in addition to Safaricom to develop the best technological interventions “that can even enable the one monitoring them to know when the motive force is about to nod off”.

Mr Murkomen mentioned: “It will imply that the colleges will additional be required to put aside management rooms with somebody to always be looking out for hazard points of the journey and name it off earlier than an accident happens”.