Passengers will have to dig deeper into their pockets during the festive season after long-distance PSVs hiked fares owing to the recent economic times.
Reports indicated that Western Kenya-bound buses such as Easy Coach had increased their fares en route to Kisumu, from Ksh1,800 to Ksh2,000.
Travellers heading to Kitale from Nairobi would have to part with Ksh1,700 up from Ksh1,450.
Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke, an officer, Greenline affirmed an increase in activities in passengers rushing to book for Christmas travel.
She pointed out that tickets to Kitale from Nairobi had increased from Ksh1,300 to Ksh1,500.
“Yes, there has been an increase in activities over the past few days. We expect the buses to be fully booked in the coming days,” the personnel indicated.
Further, prices for buses heading to the Coast region, such as Mash and Coast, increased their fares to Ksh3,000 from Ksh1,200. The buses were fully booked for the Christmas period.
Easy Coach’s managing director, Azym Dossa, while speaking to the press, revealed that the cost of doing business went up, which prompted the company to adjust the fares across different routes across the country.
“We have had to adjust our fares because of high operation cost that has been occasioned by a number of factors including fuel prices and the minimum wage requirement,” he noted.
“We pay taxes when we cross to a new county and there are so many counties that we pass through before we get to our final destination. We want these taxes to be synchronised,” Dossa added.
The developments surfaced despite the marginal decline in fuel prices in the past two months. In October 2022, the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) reduced fuel prices for petrol and Kerosene by Ksh1 and Diesel by Ksh2.
The following month, the prices were reduced by Ksh1 for the three entities. Currently, the prices for Super Petrol, Diesel and Kerosene retail at Ksh177.30, Ksh162 and Ksh145.94, respectively.
Source: kENYANS.CO.KE