President William Ruto has sounded a warning to Transport CS Kipchumba Murkomen over the surge in road accidents.
The President directed the CS and his team to ensure road carnage incidents come down within a year.
Ruto expressed distress about the surge of road crashes each year saying the country is losing a lot of people.
"I look forward to one year from now we will have another meeting and Kipchumba Murkomen you better come and report to us that the numbers are coming down otherwise you will be in a lot of trouble," the President said.
He spoke on Wednesday at the KICC in Nairobi during the official launch of the National Road Safety Action Plan by NTSA.
Ruto directed the Ministry of Transport to cut down the number of road accidents by fifty per cent.
"The numbers have not been coming down instead they have been going up, every year the numbers have been going up. The CS and your team, the numbers have to come down. The template on how they should come down is known and practised everywhere," the President said.
He directed traffic police and the National Transport and Safety Authority to work together to enhance safety on the roads.
The President acknowledged that for a long time, there has been a disconnect and competition between the two agencies in terms of enforcement of traffic rules, something he blamed for the failure to achieve the desired results.
He told the Inspector General of Police Japhet Koome and the NTSA Director General George Njao to ensure synergy is effected immediately.
"Mr IG, Mr DG, please, I expect greater collaboration so that we can see results coming down," he said.
Ruto also expressed his commitment to ensuring the proper execution of the plan by providing resources and legal frameworks as he called for concerted efforts among ministries and other stakeholders.
Murkomen on his part underlined the need to streamline the boda boda sector as a way of reducing road accidents in the country.
He said motorcycles are the leading cause of accidents in the country today having surpassed the public service vehicles and private vehicles.
“If we are going to sort the road accidents issue, we have to deal with boda bodas,” he said.
The CS revealed that there are currently 2.5 million motorcycles in the country where about 1.5 million are active.
