The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) is a failed institution, and its leadership has proven itself incapable of protecting Kenyans.
Instead of ensuring road safety, this organization has become a tool for extracting wealth from the public.
The agency’s leadership is either complicit in this scheme or too incompetent to stop it, and the consequences are devastating for ordinary citizens.
The proposed mandatory vehicle inspection policy exposes the true nature of this administration’s relationship with the NTSA.
On paper, the reasons sound legitimate, but the real driver is not safety. It is money. Not for the NTSA, and not for the Treasury, but for a well-connected few.
With about 5 million serviceable vehicles in Kenya and a proposed inspection fee of kshs 2,000, this policy creates a staggering ten billion shilling market.
This is not a safety measure; it is a business opportunity designed to enrich private players who have greased palms across government corridors.
The NTSA leadership has already admitted, through its actions, that it cannot handle this task. The authority struggles to print driving licenses, a simple administrative function. How can anyone believe it has the capacity to physically inspect millions of vehicles?
The answer is that it cannot, and this is part of the plan. The NTSA will conveniently “discover” its lack of capacity and turn to private partners. These partners, who helped write the rules, will then walk away with billions without investing a single shilling.
Their only investment is in wielding state power, a power that the NTSA leadership has failed to guard against.
The audit reports and stakeholder complaints paint a picture of an agency in chaos. The NTSA has lost control of its own Transport Integrated Management System (TIMS) portal, the very platform used for vehicle registration and licensing.
This loss of oversight is a security nightmare, leaving motorists’ data vulnerable to manipulation. Allegations of systemic bribery have plagued the authority, with reports that driver credentials and vehicle inspections are routinely compromised.
The Matatu Owners Association has openly accused the NTSA of allowing unroadworthy vehicles to pass inspection because of bribery, a damning indictment of the leadership’s failure to enforce basic standards.
This culture of corruption is so entrenched that it has torn the authority apart from within. The leadership has allowed a system where junior officers are arrested for blowing the whistle on bribery rackets involving senior officials, while the top management escapes scrutiny.
The Road Safety Association of Kenya has demanded that senior officers be investigated, yet the NTSA leadership continues to preside over this circus.
The authority is not protecting Kenyans; it is protecting a system of theft.
The current Director General, Nashon Kondiwa, and his predecessors have overseen this decline. They have allowed an authority meant to save lives to become a byword for corruption and incompetence.
When the government promises to privatize inspection, the NTSA leadership stands by, ready to hand over a goldmine to private players while the agency remains in a state of collapse.
The promise that there would be no money left to steal was not a commitment to integrity; it was a threat that the spoils would be reserved for a select few.
The NTSA leadership must be held accountable. They have failed Kenyans, turning a safety agency into a cash cow for the politically connected.
