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State releases 4,000 number plates to ease shortage

cars

Imported cars at a yard in Mombasa on November 24, 2017. Photo | Kevin Odit | NMG

The scarcity of number plates in the country will soon ease after the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) dispatched 4,000 to Mombasa this week.

Another consignment of the plates was to leave Nairobi for Mombasa last evening, the State agency's Director General Francis Meja said.

Uhuru directive

In an exclusive interview with the Nation, Mr Meja also disclosed that NTSA had complied with President Uhuru Kenyatta’s directive to keep off the roads.

A total of 100 police officers who had been attached to NTSA, he said, have been released while 78 members of staff who had been assigned on the roads had been recalled.

“We are okay with the directive. We support the directive. Our functions are wide. We will re-assign our officers who were on the roads...we are re-organising to focus on our mandate,” Mr Meja said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Asked what will happen to the high number of vehicles that were being used by NTSA to man roads, Mr Meja said “we are still discussing.” He was however certain the cars will be used for other works.

On January 9, President Kenyatta directed that all NTSA officers be withdrawn from Kenyan roads.

The president said that traffic police officers should take over duties on the highways as part of efforts by the government to curb road crashes.

Car registration

Another last consignment of number plates was to leave Nairobi for Mombasa last evening, to clear what he termed as a ‘little’ shortage.

Mr Meja, however, refuted media reports that 6,000 imported vehicles could not leave the port of Mombasa due to the shortage.

READ: Shortage of number plates delays new car registration

He linked the scarcity to delays by the supplier –the Kenya Prisons Service.

Number plates are made at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison in Nairobi.

“There’s no cause for alarm, the shortage has been cleared,” Mr Meja said.

Car Importers Association of Kenya (CIAK) Chairman Peter Otieno said the 4,000 plates would solve the backlog problem, but added that new vehicles were being registered daily.

“NTSA should make a projection of the number of vehicles registered each month and make the plates so that they are ahead of registration,” Mr Otieno said.

An average of 4,000 vehicles are imported into the country each month.

New generation

The NTSA boss says new generation number plates to be introduced in March will fully address the frequent shortage as the current ones are made manually.

“The making of the current number plates is 100 per cent manual. New technology will be used to make the new ones which will be automated and will have high security features,” he noted.

“The new number plates will be of international standards with little manual intervention, a thing that would enhance production.”

He said the new plates would be expensive than the current ones and have much better quality thus addressing complaints by users.

Stuck at port

Last week, the CIAK chairman said 6,493 vehicles that were lying at the port due to lack of number plates were attracting storage charges of Sh19.4 million a day.

The new plates are supposed to put Kenya at par with many countries in the developed world and are meant to assist police track down car thieves, terrorists and other criminals in real time.

By simply screening over a number plate with a hand-held machine, police would instantly obtain the name of the owner of the vehicle, the registration number, engine and chassis numbers and a history of previous owners.

The smart plates are thus expected to give the police an advantage in tracking down stolen vehicles, as well as those used to commit other crimes like carjacking and hit-and-run accidents.

READ: Transport investors want some NTSA functions left to counties