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Chaos as vehicle number plate shortage persists
A woman fixes a new digital number plate to a vehicle outside the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) offices in Nakuru Town on March 5, 2024. A shortage of number plates has hit the motor vehicle industry in Kenya.
A shortage of number plates has persisted for close to a month despite assurances from the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) that it would be resolved, hurting motor vehicle dealers stuck with units at Port of Mombasa customs.
The Kenya Auto Bazaar Association (Kaba) —a lobby for second-hand car dealers— says the NTSA has not dispatched any new plates since it released a batch in early April amid mounting industry disquiet.
The lack of number plates has significantly slowed down sales for second-hand car dealers and has also led to a stockpiling of imported units in customs warehouses at the port.
“It is now over two weeks since they released some number plates. The last batch released was for up to 800J series, then we have K, L, M, N, and P. All these are not there,” Charles Munyori, secretary-general of Kaba, said on Wednesday.
All imported vehicles must be fitted with a number plate before leaving the port of Mombasa, highlighting the nightmare faced by dealers and buyers.
“Plans are underway to resolve the issues. From early next week, all dealers may visit and collect the registration plates from the centres identified during the applications process,” NTSA Director-General George Njao said in a response on Wednesday evening.
Dealers have in the past been charged Sh3,000 daily for delayed clearance of imported second-hand motor vehicles, highlighting why the continued stay of the shipped vehicles is a financial burden.
In the past, the KRA has allowed imported used vehicles to leave the port without the number plates to ease the financial burden on dealers.
Kamiti Maximum Prison is the State entity tasked with producing number plates. Lack of raw materials has been cited as the reason for the shortage in the past.
Most sellers and buyers are forced to use the Kenya Dealers (KD) number plates, which can only be used between 6 am and 6 pm. KD plates are a temporary measure for vehicles that are awaiting number plates or have yet to be insured.
A number plate currently costs between Sh2,050 to Sh1 million. A normal plate costs Sh2,050, a special one goes for Sh30,000, while a customised plate is the most expensive at Sh1 million.
The shortage of plates comes barely four months after dealers were hit by downtime in registering and transferring number plates on the NTSA portal.
The disruptions, which followed the migration of NTSA systems to the eCitizen portal, slowed sales and derailed the recovery of an industry that was still recovering from importation hitches at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and a dollar shortage that hit the Kenyan economy two years ago.
Sales of motor vehicles have slowed significantly potential buyers reel from depressed spending power.
Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics shows that some 93,646 vehicles were registered last year, a drop of 44.4 percent from the 168,668 in 2023, pointing to falling sales of both new and used units.
