i have never thought about it to be honest till today. I had the arge to browse the internet on cars from japan which is completely unlike me, i just dnt like JDM cars, so mimi ndo huyo tradecarview and i click mercedes then S class. By default the site was from low to high price with prices za premio all over in the S class category, taking a second look i realise the cars are older and you couldnt import them, well, thanks to our absurd import regulation.
Looking at these cars, the milage was mostly around 150k and above but the cars are clean, away better than the shit you see around here
For example this s 550 here was 1.2m b4 taxes[ATTACH=full]90389[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=full]90388[/ATTACH]
What excuse does the government give for this law? protect the environment and avoid damping of used cars in kenya. Well that might somehow be true. But if environment protection was the the reason for this regulation then government should have considered about taking every vehicle over 8 years old offtheroad because the old vehicles we normally see here are in a worse condition than these from japan.
Watu wa toyota, the price of a mark x is 500k, a crown is around apo pia
Corona premio 2001 70k b4 taxes… just look how clean it is[ATTACH=full]90391[/ATTACH]
Tthis vits was 30k
[ATTACH=full]90392[/ATTACH]
Me thinks the government inakula na dealers, besides the Japanese are making a killing from this law
Wrong. It happens the ruling rich can afford any brand new car they want and pay the regular VAT applicable to all goods or even invoke the tax waivers they give themselves. Then the middle class that needs these second hand cars is small, politically insignificant, and largely ignorant. Some in middle class think they are driving new cars na hata hawaulizi mbona manual ama warranty hawana. hawaulizi mbona gari inahitaji repairs na ilikuja last month. The poor here, who have the real power, dont care about cars and believe they are born to walk. They are living at the basic instinct level. kama vile myama ya msitu hukula nyasi instinctively. It has never thought of wasting time and effort to buy chaff cutter or make hay. The poor actually think or want to think they have a better life than you who has to take care of a car. This is real, and this is the response you get from the most poor because they are engaged in a self deprecating defense for their situation.
The argument about old cars polluting the environment and asking for expensive maintenance is null because in this country, 20 year old cars are still on the road and out of reach for most. Owners of old cars can hardly afford an 8 year old import because of taxes.
Kenyans think that they are one of the countries that has most cars per person in the world. I hear people say that kenyans have bought too many vehicles whenever there is a traffic jam. This is crap because compared to those who have progressed, we have no cars and we are at the introduction phase. kwanza we rank with failed states and other banana republics namba za mwisho huko. Ati tuko na magari na ninaona 45 year olds at driving school because they are hoping to buy their first car from some junk yard about town. The fact is that we have no roads. people have worked hard to pay taxes, buy cars expensive as they are, have better lives, etc while the leaders they choose use money for roads to buy choppers for campaigns and acres and acres of land to hoard. The result is jam and death.
thats what makes me wonder, unaona gari sbt buying price + shipping is about 300k but ikifika kenya taxes + duties unapata total cost inakuja kitu 600k plus.
You need to see those cars you term ‘classic’ before they are renovated.
Kenya has classic cars only that they are rotting in yards and parking lots za your fathers and grandfathers only to be sold as scrape. Try and refurbish those and create your own classic cars, wacha kutegemea wazungu, paying for another man’s sweat is expensive.
Mobius, a local assembler, sells a brand new car with zero mileage at less than a milllion Kes na we still look for premios from nje. Why? Because we would rather enrich someone you don’t know than enrich someone you might meet on the streets and hurt our egos. Yet, when the same wazungus arrive in Mombasa in a yatch that you paid for, it becomes a news item claiming that foreign money imeingia.
In fact the age should be reduced to 2 years. In that way, necessity being the mother of invention, we might haul our asses and create our own - because we can.
Taxes should be reduced kabisa and scrape off county license fees entirely as they encourage county goverments to be lazy by thinking they have money when in reality they are killing local businesses by overburdening their own. Let counties make money through fines, not licenses. #mytwocents
While it’s a good idea to restrict the age of cars that get into our country, the simple fact is that the government overtaxes us way too much.
I was trying to shop for a second hand car online with an Indian friend and he was shocked at the amount of tax that we pay making old cars so expensive.
He told me that in India, their government has really lowered taxes for local and international car manufacturers who have factories in India making new cars very affordable and people rarely import second hand cars.
In the current laws, there’s a regulation that requires inspection of all vehicles over 4yrs old annually. It just hasn’t been operationalized for logistics reasons.
Very true. The taxation regime treats cars as a luxury which they really aren’t. Why, for instance, should car imports be subjected to excise duty (so-called sin tax)?
Hapo nakubaliana nawe. They’ve made it too expensive to do genuine business. That’s why you see them in conflict with traders and businessmen all over.
One thing you’ll also notice is that the int’l manufacturers represented locally usually ‘collude’ to make used imports expensive. An example is one of the new (Commuter) 16-18 seater vans launched late last year by TK. They’re selling a new one for around 3.9-4.2m. The CRSP (figures that TK provide to KRA) for a 7-year old unit of the same is at around 8m. How now?
This blatant manipulation resulted in a situation a few years back where the Subaru Legacy saloon was more expensive than its station wagon/ estate version. These int’l brands are not exactly blameless in this conundrum.