Murkomen Announces Ruthless Crackdown On Motorists

Roads, Transport and Public Works Cabinet Secretary (CS) Kipchumba Murkomen has revealed that his Ministry will implement radical changes to the Kenyan transport sector that will hit motorists and other players hard.

Speaking during an interview with Citizen TV's Jeff Koinange on Wednesday, November 2, Murkomen stated that the new changes, when they are introduced, will see motorists fined on the spot when they break traffic laws.

The fines would work in a manner that motorists will be tracked down using the smart number plates that will be monitored by traffic cameras and an SMS sent informing the rogue motorist of the fine for the traffic law they broke.

The Ministry will bolster this through the deployment of police officers to a command centre to monitor the habits of rogue drivers along major roads in the country.

"We will move to instant fines immediately to ensure that if you are found committing a traffic offence such as overlapping, we will be able to identify you using the current smart number plates and make sure that you get an SMS directly to your phone telling you that you were found breaking rules and the fine. The cameras will have recorded.

"We will have e-police officers that will be at the command centre monitoring what is happening and making sure that the information is recorded for evidence if need be," he promised.

He warned that the upcoming technology would keep records of all repeat traffic offenders whose insurance premiums would be increased while the fines would attract interest.

Murkomen added that in the event their behaviours continue, their driving licenses risk being revoked and that they would have to return to driving school for fresh training.

He added that the Ministry will implement a digital system that will track the progress of contractors assigned to certain roads as well as updates on their maintenance to rein in rogue elements.

“We want to digitize the information about all the roads so that we know this contractor is in this road, this other is maintaining this road…we will also know the status of each road.

“If we do that, at a click of a button, at my office or the office of the agencies or any person who wants to access, we should be able to know road x to y was lastly maintained at this particular period, the contractor was so and so and then if we have an issue raised by the people of Kenya or oversight entities then we will know this is the contractor who is not doing a good job," he said.

The former Elgeyo Marakwet Senator reiterates that digitizing information on the infrastructures in the country will ease the identification of the different types of projects countrywide.

Murkomen further assured that his leadership will focus on the often maintenance of the already existent roads in a bid to prevent re-construction at a later stage, which would then require the government to spend more funds.

“My idea is that maintenance resources have been there but the problem is that they have not been applied to maintain,” he explained.

“We maintain when the road has already been dilapidated. We have a problem in the country where maintenance is like new construction.”

At the same time, he said the Kenya Kwanza government was committed to commencing the construction of roads, latest by January 2023.