BREAKING NEWS!! Matatu Strike over Fuel Prices SUSPENDED after Government and PSV Operators agree

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]My name is Kushan Mushiri. I'm the CEO Federation of Public Transport Sector FPTS and the national chairman for the association of material transport owners come to today.

[00:00:14]As much as we would have been happy to say that we got the 46 shillings that we were seeking, we are also glad that at least negotiations have started in earnest.

[00:00:42]well noted by government and uh had this unfortunately.

[00:00:52]So for on behalf of the Federation of Public Transport Sector and Association of Mater Transport owners, mine is to urge all our membership, our drivers, our conductors to resume operations im effective immediately so that uh we can be able to assist our uh Kenyans continue with their normal running of their normal activities. But we want to assure our members that we within the next 7 days we shall have done the best of negotiations and I believe by the time we come back here we will come with a good solution and I am happy our able governors are take us seriously. Soon everybody, my name is Sir Albert Karaga.

[00:02:06]I'm the president of Matonas Association. We want to urge our members wherever they are to go back to work.

[00:02:12]We've come up with something whereby next week I think there'll be something coming up. So we urge them to go back to work and we want to thank the government. We are going to work very closely and we've agreed to form a committee which is going to look into other issues related to the transport sector mostly on PSV because we've been having so many issues on insurance.

[00:02:36]We've been having issues on traffic matters corruption. So we thank the minister. We are going to work very closely with this office to make sure that we enable the transport sector to grow. Thank you.

[00:02:51]>> Uh let me let me say this. Let me start by confirming that indeed we have got the white smoke.

[00:03:05]We have had very very candid deliberations with the leadership of the public sector transport operators since yesterday.

[00:03:22]Those deliberations have been concluded this morning and I must confirm that they have been concluded successfully.

[00:03:35]As a matter of fact, due to the situation that currently obtains in the Middle East and bearing in mind that Kenya remains a net importer of petroleum products, the government conscious of the difficulties that the public continues to endure following the skyrocketing of petroleum product prices has taken very very deliberate measures on the matter of subsidy alone between last month and this month those two pricing cycles the government has applied some 13.9 billion shillings to manage the cost of these petroleum products.

[00:04:38]Last night's reduction by 10 shillings on the cost of diesel per liter alone took some 2.7 billion shillings.

[00:04:57]And therefore that is a demonstration of the fact that the government continues to be sensitive to the plight of Kenyan petroleum consumers and that is going to be the case even going forward. I must thank the public sector transport operators for their understanding and for accepting to work closely with the government during these very difficult times and for accepting to call off the strike as we engage in further negotiations with a view to stabilizing the situation across the country. So, thank you very much.

[00:05:44]My my name's Dennis Kia, Secretary General, Track Association of Kenya. I would like to take this opportunity and thank the government for recognizing transport sector as a very economic a very important economic driver in this country. And with that I would say whatever was have said that I now call and tell my members to suspend the s.

[00:06:14]>> Thank you.

[00:06:18]>> Everybody wants to say something but we don't have the time.

[00:06:23]With all due respect and the respect that we have been given today here as you can see my sister and brothers and the the citizen of this nation we want to extend that uh respect to the media and to the nation what we have agreed here I can confirm the mi and s m are seated here and I I'm sorry I'm sorry for that and our our able governor that the strike has been suspended.

[00:06:54]>> That is what I want our Kenyan citizen to hear. And since we have a nation to build >> and our government to learn, Kenya is ours.

[00:07:05]So therefore on behalf of our ST uh transport stakeholder, our partner and our corporate on behalf of our TSV I want to assure them that since we have suspended the strike for give room to negotiation and if that does not if that we are not able to agree we'll come back for the same but for today the nation should run. Thank you very much.

[00:07:48]and the leaders of the Matu sector, the truck association border. We have digital transporters.

[00:08:15]um in all sectors.

[00:08:17]Children have not gone to school. There are sick people who need to go to hospital. There's farm produce that needs to be transported. And so that is why we, you know, chose to move get out of the way and just come together to listen to each other. We have operators and we have government but ultimately we are Kenyans and where there is dialogue and respect and these operators will tell you because I I work with them very closely.

[00:08:44]So I want to assure the people of Nairobi the people of Kenya that we have found a way forward together. We'll have very high level deliberations.

[00:08:59]Let us build our economy even as we resolve this um issue. I want to appeal and I know through the wazer we shall reach out officially to financial institutions.

[00:09:11]We are in extraordinary times.

[00:09:15]The crisis we are in is global.

[00:09:18]Let us not take it out on our people.

[00:09:23]auction we can we can talk to them on some level of amnesty for some time because people people are really struggling and so it's good for you to know the government actually we realize you know that increase is extremely high there are certain limitations of what we can do but in the next few days you will see and I have promised them as their >> as their friend and their guaranter >> that we shall sit at the highest level to resolve solve this pain that Kenyans are feeling. So I really want to thank the CS for interior for his leadership, CS for energy, also the CS for transport that this consultation also should go on that we don't only meet during a time of crisis. Let us meet to see how to improve this sector to make public transportation as it should be affordable, reliable for the sake of Kenyans.

[00:10:28]Thank you. Thank you very Thank you very