After spending 17 years and 11 months in long-distance truck driving crisscrossing the Northern corridor, Stephen Matei Musunza, 53, never thought for once that he will one day be forced to go back to a driving school to refresh his skill.

 However early this month Musunza, a father of two, enrolled for driver retesting and coughed up over Sh11,000 for the classes in which he is learning the basics of driving. 

The trucker says the decision to go back to driving school, his experience notwithstanding, was inevitable following the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) requirement that all Public Service Vehicles (PSVs) and commercial vehicle drivers must undergo re-testing.

“I came here at the NTSA offices with my license to get approval of some documents but they said as per the requirement I must undergo retesting… but because I had applied for a job and I was promised some lucrative deal somewhere I had no option but to go back to school on August 10,” Musunza explained. “Now I have been taken back to basics of theory and model town board. I must say such things can be so annoying for a person of my level. I have been behind the steering wheel for all those 17 years. I have driven long and loaded trucks all the way to Kigali, Kinshasa, Juba and other cities of East Africa where driving rules vary from country to country but today I am sharing sessions with basic learners.”

While in Kenya the law dictates that motorists keep left, Musunza says he has mastered the laws of other countries like Rwanda and Uganda.

Transport paralysed

NTSA had announced the retesting of all drivers upon the expiry of their licenses. The retesting, which started on June 1, would also entail a mandatory medical fitness test by a qualified medical practitioner.

The move was met with vehement resistance by drivers who declared a countrywide strike to oppose the exercise, prompting Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen to suspend the exercise until September 1 when it is expected to resume.

The strike would have seen transport paralysed in the country.

In a statement, Murkomen said the suspension was aimed at allowing for the formation of a multi-agency team to look into concerns raised by drivers.

Out of 1,847 drivers across the country who underwent a retest between June 9 and June 30, only 576 passed the test while 1,170 failed.

The exercise targeted drivers with class endorsements B3, D1, D2, D3, C, C1, CE and CD.

The retesting followed increased accidents across the country, which have left hundreds dead.

And as the clock ticks towards September 1, the discomfiture amongst players in the transport sector is mounting.

Kenya Long Distance Truck Drivers Association chairperson Roman Waema is of the idea by NTSA to subject truckers to mandatory retesting was unfair and unconstitutional since there was no public participation.

“This idea was brought through the back door because there was no public participation and key stakeholders in the transport sector were not involved.  The Authority has brought these complicated laws through the backdoor,” explains Waema who further insists the directive to have Commercial truckers undergo mandatory retesting is not only punitive but also inconveniencing.

Further confusion

Initially, the chairman says the official stamps for truckers used to be from the Artic Driving Academy, which would later be changed by NTSA with the introduction of a smart driving license.

However, according to Waema, the introduction of smart driving licenses has invited further confusion as the truckers reportedly ended up losing their  CE license stamps, which are the Trailer driving licence.

“This is dangerous because the majority of the truckers here now don’t have the trailer stamp which is the only proof to show that they are licensed Trailer (Heavy Commercial Vehicle) drivers. NTSA told us to apply but nothing has so far been done.

“This is outright corruption because they have deliberately deleted our stamps from their digital system so that they force us to go back to class for retesting. We are saying we are not ready to go back and if they will not listen to us, we are ready to paralyse transport in the country,” explained Waema who blames the Authority for micromanaging the processing of licenses for truckers.