NYAHURURU, Kenya Jan 4 – Business activities within Nyahururu town are at a peak as transporters continue to raise fares as they take advantage of the re-opening of schools this year.
A spot check by Capital Business revealed that transport operators along the Nyahururu-Nairobi route have hiked the fares from Sh300 to Sh600, while those plying the Nyahururu-Nakuru route raised the fares from Sh120 to Sh200.
As a result of the influx of passengers, many travellers have been stranded due to the unexpected high charges.
"We did not expect the fare to rise this much like before. So that\’s why we are stranded here and we may end up returning home because we had only been given enough bus fare to school", said a section of students travelling to Nairobi.
Major Matatu Saccos also claimed they had run out of vehicles as they were out ferrying passengers to their destination forcing some of them to delay their customers.
"All our vehicles are on the road. That\’s why there most of our customers are stranded here but we can assure them the vehicles are still coming to pick them", Joseph Mwaura of Nuclear Investment said.
He said that this year, there were more travellers compared to other years but could not attribute this to a specific cause.
"We are yet to know why there may travellers this year than other times but we believe most of them had not returned to their places of work. You know Christmas weekend was too short and probably most people took advantage of the New Year festivities to remain in the rural areas", he said.
Separately, parents continued to flock bookshops and supermarkets to buy stationeries and other good for their school going children.
Most business owners who spoke to Capital Business said customers started flocking their shops just as early as 7:30am to avoid long queues.
Others claimed they are about to go out of stock to high demand of some essential goods that had had not been supplied adequately due to the unforeseen high number of shoppers.
