Kenyans proudly driving junk cars

A container freight station at the Mombasa port. Photo/FILE

The Kenyan market has been flooded with imports of old vehicles entering the country with falsified mileage readings.

Industry sources say gullible customers are buying the popular Toyota AE110 model - irregularly entering the country - that was last manufactured in 2000.

However, since they were last registered in 2001 means the last batch should not have entered later than December 2008 according to Kenya Auto Bazaar Association (Kaba) secretary general Charles Munyori.

He said members of the association, a lobby recognised by both Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) and the Kenya Revenue Authority KRA), are suffering due to the dumping of the nearly worthless vehicles by independent competitors, especially from Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

In the public service sector, the Toyota Caravan, long out of manufacture, has become the dumping model of choice.
Kenyan law does not permit entry of vehicles older than eight years into the market, but both KRA and Kebs have virtually turned a blind eye to the racket for unclear reasons.

“We are surprisingly seeing Nissan Caravan QD32 with registration number KBG/J, despite the fact that they do not qualify to enter the country,” Mr Munyori said.

Not even high-end vehicles have been spared as the Range Rover imported from the United Kingdom and South Africa has been proliferating on the Kenyan roads.

Most of these cars were manufactured in 1998 and 1999, but wannabes are happy to keep up with the Joneses for just Sh3 million compared to buying the real deal from CMC Motors for Sh15 million.

Trucks are said to have joined the fraudulent game where mileage is reduced to just a 10th of the real number. While in the past it made no sense to import used trucks because the price gap between them and new ones was small, they are now arriving in significant numbers.

But the Kenya Revenue Atuthority commissioner in charge of motor vehicles, while admitting used car imports are proving to be a great challenge, told Sunday Nation his department registers cars once Kebs has issued the clearance and customs department collected the applicable duty.

No age limits

The issue is complex. There are vehicles purported to be in transit to Uganda and Tanzania where there is no import age limit, and there people manipulating documents and odometer readings to pass Kebs inspection.

Indeed, last week Kebs, in partial acknowledgement of the problem, circulated a letter notifying importers that from today they could not bring in vehicles without authorization by a Japanese certification agency.

But that just addressed mileage tampering, not fraudulent importation of over-age vehicles.

The age factor has been a controversial issue for the East African Community as Uganda and Tanzania insist on no caps out of economic consideration for their poorer populations.

“We have been trying to harmonise the age, but that has proved difficult,” said registrar of motor vehicles Simeon Kirgotty, who was quick to add that removing the age limit would be a disaster both economically and environmentally. “We’d better fight than do away with that,” he said.

But that position has translated into Kenyans buying vehicles supposed to be in transit and dumping them here, which triggered a crackdown on foreign-registered vehicles in Kenya months back.

Other crafty operators have resorted to using motorcycle number plates on the diverted transit cars, forcing Kenya Revenue Atuthority to issue special and different number plates for motorcycles.

But others have opted to import cars that have not been inspected and pay a penalty of 35 per cent for local inspection.

Even after paying that rate which, on average, adds up to Sh140,000 for the AE110, the car salesmen have defrauded the customer and gotten away with importing over-age vehicles. But the Kenya Revenue Atuthority collects its tax all the same.

“We would like to assure you that several measures are being instituted to address malpractices in the trade,” Kebs managing director Kioko Mang’eli said in a letter to Kaba, announcing the contracting of Japan Export Vehicle Inspection Center Co Ltd (Jevic) to issue certificates of non-conformity where the odometer is tampered with.

Mr Kaba said since the letter was written on May 20, there has been improvement and suppliers are even mailing the actual readings.

Easy time

Jevic will have an easy time because vehicles in Japan are periodically tested for roadworthiness, and it is easy to tell when the odometer has been tampered by referring to the original logbook.

The Kebs boss said the Kenyan embassy in Japan is implementing a code of practice for exporters that will limit sourcing to firms listed in its “watertight registration system.”

Names of approved sellers are to be published in Kenyan newspapers. Until then, some Kenyans are condemned to proudly driving junks that frequently break down.