90 passengers who were traveling to Nairobi from Mombasa using Modern Coast buses were stranded at Sultan Hamud Township in Makueni County on Wednesday 18th December at 3:30 am when police stopped them.
The two Modern Coast buses, which had 45 passengers on board each, were intercepted and had to remain under police watch for illegally going back to business.
According to the police, the two Modern Coast were back on the road despite the ongoing suspension of all the buses in the company.
Makueni County Police Commander Joseph Ole Napeiyan said they had to stop the buses as the matter was ‘pending further enforcement action’.
The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) suspended modern coast operations after two buses collided on Thursday 12th December, morning, killing seven people and leaving 60 with injuries.
The ill-fated buses were headed to opposite directions, one headed to Nairobi and another to Mombasa when they collided at Kiongwani along the Nairobi-Mombasa highway in the wee hours of Thursday morning.
The NTSA announced that it had suspended all the 88 buses belonging to Modern Coast Bus Company to allow them to probe its safety standards and operations.
On Tuesday 17th December, however, Modern Coast took to their Twitter account to inform members of the public that their buses had been cleared by NTSA and that they were set to resume operations the same day.
Modern Coast went further to apologize to their clients for the inconvenience they may have been caused following the suspension.
“We would wish to inform our customers that we have been cleared by the NTSA and operations will resume today starting at 1 pm. We also wish to apologize for the grave inconveniences caused to our esteemed customers,” read the twitter statement.
Modern Coast’s Twitter statement informing the public of the Lift of their ban went viral, catching NTSA’s attention who contradicted the information passed by Modern Coast.
NTSA denied claims that they had lifted the ban on Modern Coast Express as had been communicated to passengers and clients on social media.
READ: NTSA Suspends Modern Coast Licence After Killing 5, Injuring 62