Kenya Film Classification Board CEO Dr Ezekiel Mutua has issued a statement over PSVs that play music and pornographic videos.
Below is the statement, following Mombasa incident where over 80 matatus were impounded and detained in Bamburi and Central police stations.
"The stories of agony told by passengers in PSVs are very disturbing. The display, exhibition or playing of pornographic content, loud music and foul language used on passengers presents an image of a public transport sector gone rogue.
Some of the matatus have become cinema theatres for dirty content and are destroying the youth, especially students. Some students leave home and roam around in these vehicles the whole day. Most PSVs exhibit the worst behaviour and arrogance.
They play blaring music that makes it uncomfortable for their passengers. Passengers cannot converse or pick a call in most of these vehicles. They are held hostage and their rights violated. We can't run a country like this. Things must change. We cannot have a section of society that completely disobeys the law daily and gets away with it.
The number of road carnage caused by reckless driving is mostly as a result of indiscipline and impunity by the PSV operators. The Board has mounted a countrywide crackdown on the the PSVs that will see all the equipment mounted to screen dirty content removed. Those who want to screen or exhibit content must have an exhibitors license and the content must be rated by KFCB.
The appropriate rating for public exhibition in PSVs is General Exhibition (GE) and the content must be suitable for family viewing or listening. Content with obscene, pornographic, horror, hate speech, incitement or occultism should not be displayed.
The police are asked to arrest the drivers of vehicles violating the law, impound the vehicles and arraign the culprits in court. We must bring back sanity to the public service transport sector.
No amount of noise or resistance will stop us. It's a war we must win and we call on other Government agencies to support us.
CEO KFCB Dr. Ezekiel Mutua."