Matatus Saccos plying the Western, Nyanza, and Rift Valley routes, will pick up and drop off passengers from the Green park Terminus from December 1, 2022.
The decision was reached after the county government, under governor Johnson Sakaja, met Saccos and other transport stakeholders on Friday, November 18, 2022, at Charter Hall.
On November 28, the county government published the new guidelines agreed upon and signed by the Acting Nairobi county secretary, Jairus Musumba.
“All PSV SACCOs and PSV companies offering services between Nyanza, Western, North Rift, South Rift, and Central Rift who are currently operating from Nairobi’s Central Business District (CBD) will be relocated to the Green Park Terminus in the first phase,” the notice read in part.
Musumba noted that the move was part of the City County’s process of reorganizing public service vehicle operations for matatus plying the upcountry routes.
Sakaja, on Sunday, November 20, formed a special team to streamline Nairobi County’s transport system.
The challenge of Matatus within the CBD, which bedevilled his predecessors, was top on his priority list. Sakaja vowed to effect the relocation of PSVs from the Central Business District.
Earlier efforts by the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) Chairman General Mohammed Badi to kick matatus out of CBD to ease traffic equally failed to take off.
Badi had earmarked Green Park Terminus for buses dropping residents in Nairobi estates outside the CBD. Various tests were conducted to ascertain the efficiency of the project.
In 2018, former governor, Mike Sonko, also suspended a ban he had earlier placed on matatus to allow for further stakeholder consultations.
During his time as the County Senator, Sakaja opposed the ban of matatus in the CBD and even filed a petition against Sonko’s move to kick out matatus from the city center.
Sonko’s predecessor, Evans Kidero, equally had a run-in with Matatus in the CBD on several occasions during his tenure.
Source: kENYANS.CO.KE
