• Association wants the court to order NTSA to immediately investigate Wangai to establish improper and discriminatory activities.
• Issues involve speed governors, which association members sell. They say Wangai wants to push them out of business and is unnecessarily inspecting and harassing them.
Image: FILE
The High Court has ordered a hearing for the Motor Vehicle Inspection Authority boss sued over alleged irregular operations and harassment.
The suit filed by the Road Safety Association of Kenya is to be heard in February.
The association members sell speed governors and seat belts. The association claims the director of motor vehicle inspection Gerard Wangai harasses association vendors of speed governors.
The association wants him to step aside.
Justice Antony Mrima on Monday directed all parties to file their responses and submissions and appear in court on February 23.
Wangai is accused of harassing association members through unnecessary inspections, allegedly to push them out of the business of selling speed governors and allowing others to operate.
Association chairman David Kiarie claims Wangai is trying to intimidate members and prevent them from exposing actions of the authority.
The association wants the NTSA to immediately investigate Wangai to establish any improper and biased activities.
The association has sued Wangai, the board of the NTSA, and Cabinet Secretaries of Transport, House and Urban Development.
The association says Wangai unilaterally declared its members noncompliant with Kenyan standards on maximum road speed limiters for motor vehicles parts 1 and 2.
It said in 2018, the Kenya Bureau of Standards and NTSA developed the standard for maximum road speed limiters for motor vehicles parts 1 and 2, or KS2295-1:2018 and KS 2295-2:2018.
The standards aim to curb speed, including by mounting speed traps and limiting the maximum speed of vehicles.
“The standards introduced a raft of conditions requiring massive investments on the part of the petitioner’s members who are vendors of speed governors and seat belts,” the association says in court documents.
The association claims its members invested heavily in complying with the new standards to be licensed to sell speed limiters or governors.
The association said it set up its independent server as the basic reference point to guarantee accountability in transmitted data.
The NTSA, however, never installed its independent server though it was compelled to do so to comply with new standards before 2017, the petitioners said.
The association says it informed the NTSA though several letters about noncompliant and unscrupulous businesses violating standards and regulations.
After the association complained, Wangai as director of the Motor Vehicle Inspection Authority began to harass Road Safety Association members through uncalled for inspections, the association says.
The association said a media house published an expose on January 17, 2020, about the association's concerns and unwillingness of the authority to take action against unscrupulous businesses violating regulations.
Following the expose, the association alleges Wangari started to monitor the association's speed limiters and found their compliance levels wanting. It said he used no standards and used his imagination.
The association wants Wangai prohibited from causing or directing his employees to harass and threaten its members who sell speed limiters, without any reason.
They want an order quashing Wangari's declaration of association members to be noncompliant, without due process.
(Edited by V. Graham)