Auditor General Nancy Gathungu has disclosed several flaws in the Smart Driving License program by the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA).
This is outlined in the NTSA Audited Financial report for the year 2023/24. In the report, the Auditor General has unveiled a poor plan for the maintenance and printing of the smart driving license.
Flaws and gaps disclosed by the Auditor General slow down the printing, issuance and collection of smart driving licenses.
On one of the issues, the report revealed that NTSA had contracted a local bank and paid Ksh 31,662,815 for the maintenance of the software used in the printing of smart driving licenses.
However, it was revealed that the contract ended on October 31, 2022, and the contract was not renewed. This created a vacuum in the maintenance and printing of the driving licenses.
Management from the authority disclosed intentions to extend the contract for 12 more months and communicated the plans to the bank.
"The supplier, through their acceptance letter dated October 31, 2022, advised that they would only accept the new contract if the contract price varied upward by 23% but the authority in a letter dated November 17, 2022, promised to look into the request and advice thereafter," read part of the report.
Gathungu revealed that despite the bank continuing with the services in the period under review, NTSA did not reveal whether it complied with the price increase.
Another flaw unveiled by Gathungu was NTSA's failure to enforce ways for Kenyans to fully adopt smart licenses. According to the Auditor General, the project was only expected to last three years from 2017 to March 2020.
The bank in question was contracted on March 8, 2017, to supply, deliver, install and maintain five million second-generation smart card-based driving licenses. The contract was worth Ksh2 billion but as of June 2023, the bank was paid Ksh1.2 billion.
Only 4,042,050 cards had been supplied with only 1,479,176 being printed in the last six years. The unutilised cards are idling in NTSA's stores.
Another challenge that will slow down the phasing out of physical driving licenses is insufficient biometric kits. NTSA only had 20 biometric enrollment kits but 4 are faulty.
Most Huduma centres across the country also lack biometric kits. The available kits are also said to break down frequently due to overload.
Conclusively, NTSA lacked a proper structure to issue already printed smart driving licenses. In the period under review, 5,763 licenses had not been collected and NTSA also had expired driving licenses.
