Driving Schools wants NTSA to stabilize their online systems

Mombasa

Thursday August 3, 2023

KNA by Sadik Hassan

Coast Driving Schools have decried the frequent downtime of National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) systems, resulting in double payments and loss of data.

The Driving Schools said, albeit the registration of students is working but some data were not migrated to the new system when NTSA was transferring data from their old servers affecting driver-testing and licensing three months ago.

“The migration from the old system to the e-citizen has been a challenge to students. It’s the process of migration that is taking too long, some students' information was left behind during the migration,” said John Magara, Chairman of Coast Driving School Association during the stakeholders meeting with NTSA.

“It’s not good for somebody to lose money because the system is failing. We expected the system to run parallel with the old system before they migrate to the new system that has lost data,” he added.

The Chairman noted that the NTSA Regional Manager will cascade the challenge to the Headquarters to be ironed out not to impede service delivery to driving school students.

“We expect the changes to be effected with speed, they are many students who have encountered problems, for some of them having a driving license is like having a degree,” said Magara adding that delays are leading to youth losing job opportunities.

Eva Nyawira Coast Regional Manager said the schools are not supposed to make double payments because the e-citizen portal has provided a platform where they can raise complaints and will be able to link the payments.

Nyawira assured the Driving Schools that the system concerns raised will be forwarded to Nairobi for redress as NTSA's commitment is to have a good system that is working for their clients. Admittedly, she said they were issues with e-citizen, but operations are back full throttle.

Meanwhile, the NTSA Coast Regional Manager urged the driving schools to churn out competent drivers to avoid accidents from reckless driving through quality training and having the required equipment and materials.

“We stressed the issues of driving schools to comply with regulations that are provided by law. Their work is to ensure the country has qualified and professional drivers. 

If we check our statistics the most affected category of road users are the pedestrians and the challenge with this category is the drivers,” she said blaming drivers for being inconsiderate to pedestrians.

Nyawira urged the driving schools to also invest in the training of bodaboda riders and Persons with Disabilities (PLWDs). She noted that Mombasa needs more government training institutions for driving instructors.

Courtesy ; K. N. A