The process of transforming the management of road transport in the country will gather momentum on Monday as the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) steps up efforts to modernize the process of registering motor vehicles in Kenya through an online system.
The move, which will phase out registering motor vehicles manually, will initially be available to car dealers and over the next few months be opened up to the public. The new system is expected to cut down on the amount of time taken to register vehicles as well as the transfer of ownership to a matter of minutes. Acquiring logbooks currently takes up to a month but NTSA said this will be reduced to just ten minutes.
Consequently, NTSA is requesting motor vehicles owners to verify that their vehicles are in their names on the e-citizen portal, and if not complete the process of transfer by visiting NTSA offices with original documents.
Fernando Wangila, Director of ICT NTSA, said the migration of motor vehicle registration from the manual system, which is tedious and prone to manipulation, will be undertaken in a phased approach, with motor vehicle dealers expected to start using the NTSA portal exclusively beginning Monday June 13, 2016.
The system is already in use among motorcycle dealers, who have reported ease in doing business using the new system.
“The system has been ready for some time and we have been undertaking internal tests to ensure that there will be minimal hiccups, if at all, once the proper implementation commences,” said Wangila.
“We recently started using the system among motorcycle dealers and this process has offered experience and even enabled us to make appropriate adjustments to the system. We will be doing the same with motor vehicle dealers.”
The services offered through the system will be linked to the e-citizen portal for ease of use by Kenyans countrywide.
The implementation of online motor vehicle registration is part of a broader intelligent traffic management system project being undertaken by ICT Authority and NTSA.
“This initiative is part of our efforts to improve government services to the public to increase efficiency and promote transparency,” said ICT Authority, Ag CEO, Mr Robert Mugo. It entails presenting a seamless interface between different government departments through shared service centres and infrastructure as detailed by the ICT Master plan 2017, Mr Mugo added.
The project is funded through the World Bank fund, Kenya Transparency and Communication Infrastructure Project (KTCIP).
Registering motor vehicles will be internet and mobile technologies enabled, allowing law enforcement authorities to leverage on the advantages of ICT to reduce road carnage as well as manage traffic with ease and efficiency.
“Road transport in Kenya is critical to the economy as it has a role in facilitating movement of goods and people. It is thus critical to modernise the transport sector if the country is to attain the rapid and continued growth in trade, revenue and achieving overall robustness and stability of the economy,” said Wangila.
Embedding the registering motor vehicles 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 and security to information relevant to the transport sector.
The project is implemented by Copy Cat Ltd and Sino Soft Technologies from China. When in place, the system will help in decongesting Kenyan roads with the aid of machine readable number plates and cameras on the highways, which are integrated into a central Database.
Both the Police and the Judiciary will be able to instantly ascertain the validity of any driving license and know its history. A citizen portal will be set up and members of the public will be able to validate their documents through SMSes once fully implemented.
