NTSA refutes reports of number plates shortage
By Arnold Ngure, August 16, 2024
The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) has refuted reports by a local newspaper which indicated that a systems transfer to e-citizen was behind a shortage of number plates which has greatly affected motor vehicle sales in the country.
In a statement on their X handle on Friday, August 16, 2024, the authority assured the public that contrary to the reports, they had shelves of uncollected number plates in their stores.
“The country is not experiencing a shortage of number plates. We have 102,000 uncollected plates across NTSA offices. Motor vehicle dealers and individual motor vehicle owners are currently picking up their plates from the centres they identified during the application process,” NTSA said on Friday.
According to the report by the local daily, the transport authority was experiencing a shortage, which made it difficult for buyers to register imported vehicles at the port of Mombasa.
The shortage, according to motor vehicle dealers, was leading to increased storage fees at the container freight stations in the sea-side city, which could transfer additional burden to buyers.
NTSA damning report
In June, an Auditor General’s report revealed the inefficiencies at NTSA and exposed that more than 20,000 number plates,17,474 logbooks and 5,753 smart driving licenses lay in the offices uncollected.
The report also indicated that most of the equipment at the authority was outdated, leading to further inefficiencies at the body.
The auditor general disclosed that the system stocks of crucial documents failed to tally with the physical stock count of the same documents at NTSA offices.
The report also revealed that the authority had granted unauthorised staff permission to access some of the documents, leading to discrepancies in the stock.
Similarly, the report noted that despite NTSA rolling out the smart driving license five years ago, the authority had only 20 biometric kits for the entire country, four of which were faulty and not in use.
Additionally, the NTSA offices were found to be ineffective in meeting the ever-increasing demand for motor vehicle documents in the country, leading to the pressure being transferred to Huduma Centres across the country.
Some of the authority’s offices were found in a state of disrepair, with others affected by floods during the rainy seasons.