The National Transport and Safety Authority has been ordered to issue Samper Cabs Limited with an operating license.
The Transport Licensing Appeals Board led by its Chairman Adrian Kamotho dismissed claims by NTSA of its incapability to license or register some categories of public service vehicles.
He made reference to Regulation 4 of the NTSA which provides that a person shall not operate a public service vehicle without a valid license issued by the Authority.
He ordered the Authority to issue the company with a private hire vehicle public service license.
"It is clear that NTSA wields an exclusive and exhaustive mandate to license all vehicles upon application and satisfaction of applicable legal requirements," Kamotho said.
He, however, said Samper Cabs will have to install prescribed speed limiters that control speed to a maximum of 80kph, record and transmit speed data in real-time to the vendors of NTSA servers.
This, he said, will enable monitoring of speed violations.
The cab company will also have to ensure that each of their vehicles has a valid inspection certificate.
They are also to ensure that all fleet vehicles are well maintained and never in a dirty or neglected condition.
Samper offers road transport services to fare-paying passengers. its seven-seater motor vehicles ply the Nairobi-Kisumu route.
They moved to the board in protest of the authority's failure to license it to operate its vehicles as public service vehicles.
It said the authority declined because its vehicles are private and not public and that licenses required ought to be sought from the county governments and not them.
But the Appeals board dismissed the authority defence saying it is 'strange and untenable'
Adrian said failure to license any class of vehicles would amount to the dereliction of the mandate given to NTSA related to implementing policies touching on road transport and safety.
"No public service motor vehicle or driver should ply any Kenyan road without NTSA approval," said the Board.
