A prospective buyer checks out a car in a bond in Nakawa, Kampala District recently. FILE PHOTO
Several car dealerships are unable to import and sell vehicles due to a shortage of digital number plates, which has caused companies losses in millions of shillings in demurrage costs.
Mr Lino Icila, the secretary general of Uganda Clearing Industry and Forwarding Association, said for the last three weeks they have been struck with vehicles in the bonds due to the shortage of digital number plates.
“Many of our members are incurring unnecessary costs in demurrage. Each day a vehicle is kept in the bonds in Mombasa, Kenya, or Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, we pay money. These people applied for number plates, but up to now, they haven’t got them. They can’t import vehicles before the government registers with the number plates,” Mr Icila said yesterday. The digital number plate system was launched in January this year.
The digital number plate system, which is under the Integrated Transport Management System (ITMS), uses chips and GPS that are embedded within the number plates. They allow real-time vehicle tracking and identification. The company implementing the ITMS promised to deliver number plates on time.
However, since the launch of the system, there have been several times they have failed to deliver enough number plates to their clients prompting car dealers to threaten to strike. Affected groups Some of the affected groups are the transporters and drivers of imported vehicles. Transporters said they have been paying drivers, who are supposed to drive the imported cars into the country, for days. On average, 150 vehicles are imported into Uganda every day.
Most of them are driven from the seaports in Kenya and Tanzania to Uganda. Without any movements, at least 120 to 150 drivers don’t get employment. The association of car importers is expected to meet to seek government intervention to resolve the problem.
Ms Pearl Ayesiga, the public relations officer of ITMS, yesterday attributed the shortage to challenges in the supply of the items they use in the making of the plates two weeks ago. “The shortage was two weeks ago. We [now] have enough number plates. …The delay was due to the supply of some equipment. We received enough equipment.
The production is now going on,” Ms Ayesiga said. She said by last week all car bonds had enough number plates. Ms Ayesiga explained that some shortages of number plates in the car bonds are artificially created by the vehicle dealers to be able to sell the plates at a higher price than the standard one.
“We get reports that the car dealers tell their clients that the plates are in short supply so that they can overcharge them to acquire the available ones,” she said. When Daily Monitor contacted some car dealers yesterday, they, however, said the shortage was persisting.
Cost of digital number plates
The plates are issued at the Malaba and Mutukula border entry points.
Digital number plates for new vehicles and motorcycles cost Shs714,300.
Replacing an old plate with a new one costs Shs150,000 for motor vehicles and Shs50,000 for motorcycles.
