The National Transport and Safety Authority has made a last minute change of plans in the implementation of new number plates.
Despite having agreed with contractors who had already supplied some of the equipment, the authority has sent a team abroad with the mandate of devising ways to ensure the production of number plates had a local component.
Correctional Services PS Zeinab Hussein told the National Assembly Committee on Administration and National Security that a delegation had been sent to at least three countries.
“We have sent a team to three countries to design a system that uses local materials to produce the digitised number plates by January 2020,” she spoke.
In 2015, the ministry advertised the tender to supply and deliver number plate blanks and hot stamping foils.
Tropical Technology Limited won both tenders after a court battle that went on for years.
According to the local purchase orders seen by Nation, the company has even delivered two 40ft containers of blank plates at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison.
It is not clear what may have transpired between the time the contracts were awarded and the latest move to seek an alternative supplier.
