‘We need to build proper systems that will stand the test of time’, says Meja

In the wake of a sudden surge in accidents which caused deaths of at least 250 in one month alone, the National Transport and Safety Authority has been under fire over failure to manage the situation.

It has also been accused of reacting in a knee-jerk manner that does not provide long-term solutions. In an interview with the Standard, NTSA Director General Francis Meja, had this to say.

Why does NTSA resort to knee-jerk reactions whenever a road accident occurs?

It is not true and I will give you examples. The body construction standards, new driving school curriculum and Highway Code. Are these knee-jerk? Sometimes circumstances dictate the direction we take. When we act, we are accused and when we don’t take action we are still accused.

Do you think banning night travel by PSVs will reduce road carnage?

Although we are keen on facilitating people to conduct business, safety is paramount. Our analysis is clear, 67 per cent of accidents happen at night. It is equivalent to someone bleeding. First you stop the bleeding then look for the real problem.

But there was a similar ban before. What informed the decision to lift it?

Yes, there was but I think some of the operators started abusing the guidelines that were put in place leading to the lifting of the ban. And if we were to lift this ban, one of the proposals is real-time monitoring of speed so that if someone tampers with his gadget we know immediately.

Why buses and not trucks when all of them are equally to blame for road carnage?

The risk factor in buses is higher because by their nature they carry passengers. One more life is important in this country and we can’t take any more risks.

You talk about tampering with speed limiters like it is something new. In my understanding, all PSVs go for inspection every year and those gadgets store data. Why can’t you use this data to punish errant drivers?

In the current arrangement, you have no mechanism to know when they tamper with gadgets. These drivers have switches which they switch on when they see officers.

Why has the number of fatalities remained largely the same since the inception of NTSA three years ago?

We are not doing well but the fact is in the last three years, we have seen a drop in fatalities. Also consider that we have more vehicles on the roads now. Even in 2017 we had a decline of 1.6 per cent before the festive season. The truth is, we can do better if all players perform their roles. Road safety is a shared responsibility.

For example, you don’t need an authority to tell you to service your vehicle. Even passengers, when you see a driver speeding, you have the power to stop him because we cannot have an officer at every place.

Does the overlapping of NTSA roles with the police affect operations?

The only reason we went into enforcement is because we felt that it has a direct effect on the number of accidents. However, we are starting to realise that is not the direction we should have taken. In my opinion, NTSA should concentrate on compliance. We only have 170 officers and when you see people blaming us, I ask myself how this small number can man over 3 million vehicles.

But in recent years, NTSA has been taking up more roles from the other agencies instead of concentrating on road safety. Are you biting more than you can chew?

That is what it looks like but ideally we have only been taking up our roles as prescribed by the Act. We cannot abandon our mandate.

Why have efforts to professionalise the transport sector and boost safety failed? A good example is the cashless fare payment system which would have eliminated bribery whose ripple effect is deaths.

I am still convinced that the cash lite system was the best way to go. The problem is vehicle owners set targets for their crew which they struggle to meet then pocket the rest of the money.

Then there were vested interests by companies that wanted to make money out of the idea. These two contributed to the failure of what was an otherwise good idea.

The late Transport Minister John Michuki showed that it is possible to bring sanity on our roads. Why has it been difficult to bring back Kenya’s road safety recorded under Michuki?

The question is why it was not sustained after he left the ministry. What we need to do is to build systems that will outlive the person who is implementing them. The surest way is behaviour change. We should spend more effort on teaching drivers on how to change their behaviour rather than punishing them when they do wrong.

But NTSA has a budget for this. Why are we not seeing this being implemented instead of the laws you are coming up with every day?

Yes we do have a budget but is it adequate? No