The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) in collaboration with the National Police Service (NPS) launched an operation on Friday set to target un-road-worthy vehicles across the country.

This followed after the Transport Cabinet Secretary (CS) Onesimus Kipchumba Murkomen issued a directive on Thursday for NTSA to keep an eye on the motorists using their private vehicles as Public Service Vehicles (PSVs) and operating unroadworthy vehicles.

“Joint NTSA and NPS road safety enforcement exercise kick off across the country, following a directive on illegal PSVs by the Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Roads and Transport, Hon. Onesimus Kipchumba Murkomen,” NTSA noted in a statement via X (formerly Twitter) on Friday.

Reports have shown that NTSA had impounded several vehicles that did not meet the required operating criteria by Saturday.

“Several unroadworthy public service vehicles (PSV) impounded in a multi-agency crackdown across the country spearheaded by NTSA and National Police. Several others could not pass the inspection at NTSA motor vehicle inspection centers,” NTSA said in a statement.

This statement received various reactions from Kenyans in X from whom have seen this as an opportunity for the police officers to collects bribes.

“These are ways of collecting bribe and all will be channeled to the top. Why not have an inspection unit and if test is passed one is given a certificate at a fee of say 500 bob. Accountability, consistency and standardization can be achieved. We love chaos,” a user commented.

“Crackdowns are fine, but shouldn’t we focus more on proactive measures like rigorous inspection and preventive maintenance to avoid reaching this point,” another commented.

This is now the third day since the directive came into action. The direction is set to reduce cases of road accidents where most are caused as a result of unroadworthy vehicles due to brakes failures and breakdowns. The act is also to protect the environment from pollution.