A London Stock Exchange listed firm has disclosed to UK regulators its plans to supply devices which will spy on Kenyan drivers ahead of delayed launch of electronic stickers by the road transport regulator.
Starcom Plc, a leading global provider of digital vehicle tracking headquartered in Jersey, said in a regulatory disclosure on Monday it expects to start getting orders from Nairobi within the next five months.
The fitting of the digital monitoring devices will help monitor and record behaviour of the driver on the road.
This is expected to curb reckless driving on Kenyan roads and car theft, cutting claims payout by insurers which crossed Sh200 billion last year.
“A new opportunity in Kenya, where all vehicles will soon be required to have telematic devices fitted, has been presented to the company,” Starcom said in a trading note to investors.
“We are incorporating our technology inside a portable handheld printer which will be used by local police to inspect suspicious vehicles.”
The disclosure comes ahead of the imminent rollout of electronic stickers for Kenyan vehicles which will instantly give law enforcers traffic information such as vehicle ownership, insurance and history of offences.
Sketchy details
Details on the telematics record remain sketchy.
On Monday, the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) director-general Francis Meja said he was not aware of the Starcom contract, but reiterated moving towards digital storage and retrieval of motor vehicle data.
“We will put chips in vehicles which will be updated when vehicles go for inspection. This will replace licence stickers,” Mr Meja said.
Use of chips, he added, will support additional concepts such as toll charges which the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Unit in the Treasury has been working on for years now.
The rollout of Third Licence Sticker, which will be mandatory for Sh700 apiece has been delayed from the initial target of July 2017.
The NTSA said May last year it had inked a three-year deal with Tönnjes Group of Germany for supply of 3.3 million electronic stickers.
The stickers will use radio-frequency technology to transmit information to the NTSA via hand-held readers or overhead street cameras.
Registration of new vehicles rose slightly last year to 91,071 units after a drop to 90,176 in 2016 from 107,761 in 2015, data in the Economic Survey 2018 shows.
wazungu wenyewe don’t have this technology in their cars.One chooses to have it voluntarily after signing a bunch of paperworks of consents because its intrusive to someone’s privacy, but they want to dump it on africans whose constitution is somehow skewed.
However i like it and love it . Reckless driving is costing lives too much. I support it…
This should be only mandatory for public service vehicles and Shubaru racers.
Okiya ataenda court and it will be thrown out as usual. It infringes on privacy.
won’t work. NTSA wameshindwa implementing and enforcing speed governors in PSVs watawezana na the hundreds of thousands of personal cars. Kwanza this might be illegal already.
The worst part just like the speed governors in psv vehicles is that, at the end of the day a cop has to stop you and check and if in the wrong they have to arrest you or book the offense somehow - now if you do not deal with the issues within the traffic department, it does not matter how many gadgets or technology you incorporate , it will be useless.
Just assign more resources to the traffic department and other cops, and increase the numbers, I find cops on the road hitching rides and it pains me, yaani traffic police anaomba lift, so that they go to their designated work location.
seatbelts zilitushinda…
Shithole country.
Badala ya kudeal na serious issues unapata fvcks want
sijui same school uniforms, speed trackers and crap like that…
Then what would be the reason of buying any other car except Toyoyo?