Online vehicle transfers gather speed as 5,000 change ownership

The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) has transferred the ownership of more than 5,000 vehicles on the newly established digital platform that has been operational since January 1.

The NTSA’s head of ICT, Fernando Wangila, told the Business Daily that the agency is no longer accepting manual submission of transfer of ownership documents.

“We have handled over 5,000 transfers and the system has not encountered any down time,” Mr Wangila said.

Sellers of vehicles are required to initiate the online transfers under the new system — a process that could pose a challenge for buyers who have been sitting on transfer documents for years.

The NTSA, however, says those who bought vehicles before the digital transfer system came into effect and cannot trace the sellers will be assisted only if they have the original transfer and ownership documents.

“They can complete the transfer process by visiting NTSA offices with the original documents,” said Mr Wangila.

This means the agency has effectively migrated motor vehicle registration, inspection booking, transfer of ownership, record search, driver licence record search, driving licence issuance as well as licence renewal and application to its Transport Integrated Management System (Tims).

Moving the transfer of motor vehicles by dealers, individual owners and financial institutions to the online portal is aimed at easing the process and cutting the amount of time vehicle owners spend on the task.

“The system eliminates paperwork and thereby reduces time taken for the transfer,” said Mr Wangila.

The NTSA’s online system had been on trial towards the end of last year.

The system allows for real-time transfer of vehicles without having to lodge physical paperwork with the regulator.

Each party (the buyer and the seller) is now required to register on the Tims portal and submit full details, including personal identification number (PIN), national identity card and mobile phone numbers.

Individual car owners, companies, motor vehicle dealers and financial institutions were required to create their own profiles on Tims by December 31.

The notice says all persons holding onto transfer forms are required to submit them to the nearest NTSA offices for processing.

READ: State agencies cut red tape with real time online service delivery

The system is linked to the Kenya Revenue Authority’s online platform and will update all the vehicles registered to a person based on duty payments.

To transfer a vehicle, one is required to enter the buyer’s PIN and wait for the system to prompt for payment of the transfer fee.

The fee varies based on engine capacity and can be paid through the mobile money system. It will cost buyers Sh1,500 to transfer a small car. Once the fee is paid, the system will generate a two-part verification code. The first part will be sent to the seller and the second to the buyer through their mobile phones.

Each party has to enter the code on his or her Tims profile for the transaction to be completed. The system will then show that the vehicle transfer has been completed.

“If there is a dispute after the transaction then the parties have to come to the office to have it reversed,” Mr Wangila said in an earlier interview.

Once the transfer is complete, the system creates a logbook for the new owner and the buyer asked to indicate the station from which he wishes to collect the logbook. The manual process has been tedious and prone to manipulation.

Embracing technology in the management of road transport is expected to eliminate fraud and corruption, provide a single source of information on road transport data, improve compliance with traffic rules and enforcement as well as improve access to and security of information.

This is the latest attempt by the NTSA to streamline the transport sector through the use of technology.

Two years ago, the authority began the renewal of driver’s licences online through the e­citizen portal. It also intends to introduce smart driving licence that will capture one’s information and history.

“At the moment we are seeing lots of people buying vehicles but due to the tedious process of transferring, they don’t complete the contract. This legally means they are not the owners of the vehicles. Through the [digital transfer] system we want to make these processes instant,” said Mr Wangila in an earlier interview.

The NTSA had earlier envisioned that time taken to acquire a log book would be slashed significantly from the previous one to six months to about 10 minutes under the new system.