Car dealers in Kenya are planning to sue the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) over new set of rules whose deadline was set for Wednesday, December 9.
A report by People Daily indicated that the Car Importers Association of Kenya was in the process of instituting legal action against the authority.
The authority had in October issued notice on the requirements for revalidation of all operator licenses held by the members of the association.
Speaking to the press, the chairman of the association Peter Otieno claimed that authority had not engaged the stakeholders before rolling out the directive.
“When coming up with key changes affecting operations of any business, the law requires that stakeholders be involved. In this, we were never involved and it is therefore a violation of law of the land,” stated Otieno.
The exercise targeted motor vehicle dealers, manufacturers or repairers of motor vehicles and tow truck owners.
At the time, NTSA explained that the new change was aimed at enforcing compliance to the law.
The authority had also indicated that new licenses would only be issued after the completion of the revalidation exercise.
Reports have indicated that over 90,000 vehicles entered Nairobi roads every year, most of them being second-hand imports through the Mombasa Port.
The new rules come at a time when the economy's deterioration has severely affected the car industry with car prices going up by as much as Ksh500,000.
Kenyans are said to be steering clear of the market leaving vendors with unsellable cars.
According to the latest data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), new vehicle registrations dipped 33% to 52,999 in the nine months to September from 79,078 in a similar period last year.
Between August 2020 and September 2020, the number of newly registered cars went from 31,359 down to 25,710 units.
