The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) is proposing an increase of up to 900% for services to fund its budget deficit, amounting to over Kes 2.3 billion.

In draft proposals by the NTSA set to be subjected to stakeholder engagement, the road service licenses for public service vehicles will change with between 98% to 100%.

 A road license for a PSV with between 6-8 passengers moves from Kes 2,700 to Kes 5,400 with that of PSV with 26 passengers or more making a 98% rise to Kes 8400.

Further, inspection charges will increase with between 100% and 250% with vehicles below 3000 cc charged Kes 2,000 shillings for inspection up from Kes 1,000 for heavy commercial vehicles exceeding 5 tons, charges will move from Kes 1,000 to Kes 3,500 which is a 250% increase.

The cost of motor vehicle registration has also been proposed to go up by 100%.

Registration of vehicles below 1000cc will move from Kes 1700 to Kes 3400 while those 3001 and above cc will pay Kes 16,600 up from Kes 8,300.

Additionally, it will cost 3900% more to change the particulars of the colour of your vehicle from Kes 500 to Kes 20,000 while the transfer of ownership for motor vehicles not exceeding 1000cc will cost you five fold from Kes 1,660 to Kes 10,000.

The transfer of ownership of other vehicles will go up by 100%.

The renewal of licenses for motor vehicle dealers is also proposed to go up. For a second hand motor vehicle dealers license, you will pay Kes 100,000 up from between Kes 4200 and Kes 9600 which is an increment of over 2200%

According to the board of directors at NTSA, the authority has been operating at a deficit and so they have had to make the changes to make NTSA sustainable.

As at June 30th this year, the authority had a budget deficit of Kes 2.374 billion.

“The deficit is more than 500 every year and now it’s more than a billion in terms of deficit and we are looking at long term and our improvement is a long term one as our rates have not changed for the past 10 years,” said Paul Posh, board member at NTSA.

The board attributed the need to make changes in its rates to more responsibilities at NTSA which has necessitated more funding.