It was learned overnight that the High Court in Nairobi has thrown out an ill-considered, though perhaps well-meant directive by Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Transport Michael Kamau, to stop busses from traveling at night following a spate of accidents over the past months.
The court found the order in direct contravention with various provisions in law and in the constitution, effectively nullifying Kamau’s order and restoring night travel across the country.
In particular travelers from neighboring countries were greatly inconveniences as their bus schedules in the past delivered them to Kenya’s capital Nairobi in the morning for a day worth of doing business before returning back home on another overnight bus. Travel within Kenya was hit even harder as the capacity of busses was not enough to meet the demand after the entire national fleet was effectively grounded after nightfall until dawn the next day, which prompted furious complaints by the bus operators which however fell on Kamau’s deaf ears, only to have those ears proverbially pierced now by the court ruling.
The night travel ban was even used by startup airline Jambojet, a 100 percent subsidiary of Kenya Airways, which will commence flights on April 1 and has blitzed the market of domestic travelers with low fares, comparing favorably with bus fares currently charged on the main overland routes from Nairobi to Mombasa, Kisumu and Eldoret, the four destinations Jambojet will serve. Thousands of bookings were already moved from bus companies to the new airline, with some talking of over 15,000 tickets booked and the return of night operations expected to resume over the weekend, is not likely to immediately repair the damage done to the bus companies by Kamau’s shoot from the hip directive.
