Motorists in Nairobi who commit minor traffic offences such as talking on the phone while driving or exceeding speed limits will from Wednesday pay instant fines of between Sh500 and Sh10,000 after the Transport minister published penalties in the Kenya Gazette.
The motorists will also no longer be arrested, have their vehicles towed to police stations or pay fines in cash in fresh efforts to reduce corruption and restore sanity on Kenyan roads.
The list of minor violations and their corresponding fines published by Transport minister James Macharia includes speeding, motorcycle riding without protective gear, failure to fasten seat belts, pedestrians blocking the free passage of cars, driving on foot paths and travelling with part of body outside a moving vehicle.
Offenders will no longer be required to go to court but will instead pay instant fines using mobile money and get a standard receipt for it…
If this works, it will be a big plus for the GOK, Matatu owners and offenders. Of course the police will as usual think outside the box and come up with new tricks. Wanataka kuendelea kula nyama na wala si kumeza mate. Lets see which tricks they’ll come up with…
Then you pay a fine of 500 and they walk with 4500. Luckily this kind of money remains in circulation in the economy sio kama wale big wigs hupeleka Cayman Island.
You are inside on the driver’s seat and you should be holding the steering wheel in one of the two ways unless changing gear or making road signs. Feels absurdly perfectionist, but there isnt an argument out of it.
And this is harmful to the economy. Any money that changes hands without accompanying production is poisonous to the economy. In short, it breeds inflation.
By now we should be having hyper inflation if that is anything to go by, this is little money. Not that I am dismissing your view, it is the lesser evil. You should be worried by mega corruption deals that result in flight capital and business cartels conducting something a keen to barter trade.