Second-hand car dealers are incurring losses worth millions after failing to access services on the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) portal following its recent migration to the eCitizen portal.
Charles Munyori, the Secretary General of Kenya Auto Bazaar, revealed to the press that car dealers cannot transfer car ownership or make registrations via the portal owing to a system hitch.
He mentioned that when payments take a long time to be processed, it negatively impacts the business because it holds up the money from banks for cars purchased through asset financing.
Asset financing in this case is a method of acquiring assets such as a vehicle without having to pay upfront.
This involves obtaining funds from a financial institution and the purchased asset serves as collateral for the loan and the dealer repays the loan over time while being able to use the assets for the intended operations.
He added that banks provide funds between 60-80 per cent of the car value, hence a delay in processing payments makes the car dealers lose out on sales - something that he noted has been occurring since last month when NTSA migrated its services.
"We have been stuck since they migrated the system last month. We cannot make logbook transfers and registrations and NTSA is not saying anything about it," he stated.
He called on the Agency to offer a way forward on the pertinent issue to avoid incurring further losses.
Motorists have also been complaining about not accessing the services on the NTSA portal following the migration. On January 2, 2024, NTSA informed all motorists that the services would be accessed on the eCitizen platform in line with the government's move to consolidate revenue collection and enhance accountability.
A section of Kenyans online complained of system delays and frustrations in trying to access crucial services such as the transfer of logbooks and acquiring new number plates, and driver's licenses among others.
"The NTSA system was back later on Wednesday afternoon and I resubmitted the registration application, which again was rejected at 4:44 PM despite following the instructions that NTSA gave me. It seems they are not well versed with the new system."
"NTSA should issue a circular saying about the systems being down as we are harassed by traffic cops and yet the problem is not ours," read some comments online.
NTSA has yet to respond to our messages at the time of publishing this article.
