Kenya Unveils New Generation Number Plates

The government has launched new generation number plates for motor vehicles in an effort to curb illegal motor vehicle import.

Speaking during the launch of the new plates at the GSU Recce Unit Headquarters in Ruiru, Interior CS Fred Matiang’i said the move will eliminate loopholes by financial fraudsters and unscrupulous motor vehicle importers.

“One of the promises to Kenyans was that we would go digital and make everything easier for everyone. This will ensure that everybody will be able to interact and work well with vehicles. We want to ensure that people cannot continue to fake number plates,” Matiang’i stated

The new plates comply with international standards and have security features that are verifiable to allow the enforcement officers to tackle tax evasion and selling of stolen motor vehicles from foreign jurisdictions.

“We are doing this because we want to increase the security of our country. We want to help other agencies in government like KRA, and banking institutions holding logbooks whose owners and details are not known or fraudulent,” Mating’i indicated.

“Let Kenyans take advantage of the opportunity we have to acquire these new number plates so that after 18 months we do not start quarrelling with each other,” the CS urged.

Transport CS James Macharia said the new plates will cover 12 category of vehicles in line with the legal notice 62 of 2016 and allow ease of monitoring vehicles coming into the country that ranks as a major transit hub in the region.

“They form a basis for tracking and monitoring vehicles in the country which have risen significantly from 3.2M million last year to 4.8 million this year,” said CS Joseph Mucheru (ICT).

Kenyans to pay Sh3,000 to replace old motor-vehicle number plates to new digital ones; Government gives motorists 18 months to replace the plates.

All motor vehicles, from motorcycles to heavy trailers, will be required to adopt the new plates.