NTSA Explains Why Drivers Must Visit KCB to Pay Instant Fines

The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) has introduced the instant fine system to reduce road carnage, cut out opportunities for human-to-human corruption, and streamline the prosecution of minor traffic offences.

With the system, an offender receives an immediate SMS notice detailing the offence, the location, and the amount of the fine. The notice also gives the offender a seven-day window to pay, or face penalties and restrictions if they fail to do so.

NTSA says instant fines are intended to be paid quickly, preferably through mobile money or the government’s digital payment platform, eCitizen. However, the authority has reportedly been requiring drivers caught speeding or running red lights to visit a bank in person to settle their fines, which many motorists say undermines the goal of an instant process for handling minor offences.

“Important notice on payment: To complete this payment, you must visit your nearest KCB branch or KCB agent,” the notification reads.

NTSA director general Nashon Kondiwa explained the reason for the physical payment requirement, which many drivers view as unusual. He said that while eCitizen would offer greater convenience, the authority included in-person verification to protect Kenyans from fraudsters.

“We are adding physical interaction because even before we launched this, we had a lot of people who were sending SMSs that they are doing fines. So, out of abundance of caution, and just to protect Kenyans, we added the other layer of physical interaction,” he said.

The matter came to public attention on Monday after city lawyer Donald Kipkorir shared on X that his younger brother had received an alert for a speeding offense and paid the fine.

Kipkorir said his brother confirmed the notice at a KCB branch in Nairobi before making the payment and received an official receipt. He then questioned why the notification message indicated that the money would be deposited into a private account.

On Citizen TV, Kondiwa faced pressure to explain why physical payment at a bank would offer better protection against fraud or corruption than settling the fine electronically through mobile money or eCitizen.

“We are just creating another layer of check because if you go there, you will find a reference reflected in the bank system so that you are not paying money to an account without another check,” he said.

He also faced questions about why the same kind of verification does not apply to other government services, such as passports or driving licences.

“For us to choose this route, it means that while introducing this product to the market, we were aware of all the loopholes. When introducing a new product to the market, you design what we call the customer journey, and to protect the customer, you look at the possible fraud elements,” he said.

Kondiwa added that license-related service payments do not require extra verification because applicants provide identification documents first and complete the transaction inside a secure government platform.

“In this other one, the initial communication that triggers you to pay is an SMS, totally outside the platform and that’s what fraudsters are trying to do. The fraudsters are trying to hijack that process by sending you a fake SMS so that you click and pay. If ours was also click and pay, then we would be playing into the hands of these fraudsters,” he said.

Kondiwa said the NTSA notification SMS includes a payment link but does not send recipients to a payment platform.

He said, “You click, you see the details, and then we have a third eye, which is the physical agent or the teller with the details of the ticket itself with them.”

In that view, paying at a KCB branch or through an agent functions as an added authentication step rather than a measure meant to make payments more convenient.

NTSA maintains that having bank staff verify the ticket details before accepting payment helps reduce the chances of motorists falling for fake SMS messages. Still, the requirement has sparked concerns about whether it dilutes the speed and convenience that instant fines are designed to provide.

The post NTSA Explains Why Drivers Must Visit KCB to Pay Instant Fines appeared first on Nairobi Wire.