A senior engineer at the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) is on the spot after he allegedly ordered for the removal of a speed limit signage following his arrest for speeding.
Engineer Samson Murage, the KeNHA North Rift Regional Director, is accused of ordering removal of the 50km per hour speed limit sign at Gilgil Weighbridge.
The incident is said to have irked traffic police manning Gilgil junction.
Confirming the incident, Gilgil police boss Emanuel Opuru said Murage was arrested on Monday for exceeding a 25 kilometers per hour speed limit allowed the area.
“Engineer Murage was arrested by our officers on March 4, cruising at a speed of 75km/hr at a place where the speed limit is 50km/hr. He was taken to court and charged for the offence,” said Opuru.
A police officer who intimated to the Standard revealed that following his arrest, Murage ordered his officers to remove the road signage.
On his part, Opuru said the minimum speed road sign was removed on Tuesday night by unknown people.
“I’m not sure if it is by coincidence that the road sign was removed hours after the arrest of the officer,” he said.
He noted that the incident has left his officers with little control of the motorists plying the route.
“As police officers, we can no longer enforce speed limits on motorists since there is no such speed limit signage,” he added.
Officers from KeNHA also confirmed the removal of the speed limit signage.
According to Opuru, it’s the mandate of the authority to erect respective road signs at various spots while the police only enforce such directives.
“We shall not be regulating the speed limits at the spot until KeNHA puts back the signage. We complement each other and ours is enforcement of the authority’s decisions on the highways,” he said.
When reached for comment by the local media outlet on the incident, the engineer referred them to KeNHA’s Corporate Communications officer Charles Njogu.
“There are some changes we have introduced at the spot and you can get more information from Njogu,” said Murage.
However, Njogu, dismissed claims that the road signs had been removed, saying the road signs were intact. For confirmation purposes, the officer asked for a moment to consult on the matter.
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After few minutes, he is reported to have confirmed that the signs had been removed by the authority after the establishment of lanes meant for heavy commercial vehicles.
“The speed limits had been placed there to control traffic at the weighbridge. We have since put in place proper signage for the weighbridge and came up with extra lanes on either side for the heavy vehicles and the speed limits signs are no longer relevant,” said Njogu.
He, however, dismissed claims that Murage had ordered for the removal of the signs, saying presence of the speed limit signs was the cause of heavy traffic jams at the weighbridge that saw motorists stuck for hours.
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