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Govt suspends new car number plate plan
A police officer displays stolen number plates in Jinja City last year. The government has suspended the issuance of new car number plates, earlier planned to start on July 1, 2023. PHOTO/FILFE
What you need to know:
- The scheme, which was planned to be rolled out on July 1, has now been put on halt following an order by the Inspectorate of Government.
The government has suspended the issuance of new car number plates, earlier planned to start tomorrow, following an order by the Inspectorate of Government and contractor’s failure to deliver the consignment, multiple sources confirmed yesterday.
Official announcement of the decision, which State Transport minister Fred Byamukama confirmed yesterday, is expected today.
“The contractor has not supplied the number plates in time, but for us as the ministry of Works we were ready at 95 percent to roll out the exercise. The problem is at the contractor’s side, not us,” the minister noted.
He added: “The number plates are not here. We cannot strangle the contractor because he failed to deliver in time. We shall, meanwhile, continue getting number plates from the companies that have been supplying us with them because the Inspector General of Government (IGG) even halted the termination of their licences.”
In an interview last night, Ms Munira Ali, the spokesperson of the government Ombudsman, said Ugandan company GM Tumpeco Ltd and Arnold Brooklyn, hitherto makers of the car number plates, had petitioned over a move to terminate their contracts.
The government in 2021 handpicked the Russian firm, M/S Joint Stock Company Global Security (JSCGS), to supply digital number plates embedded with surveillance chips under the envisaged Intelligent Transport Monitoring System (ITMS).
As a result, Tumpeco was informed its running contract would lapse tomorrow, with the Russian firm taking over on Saturday, July 1, the start of 2023/24 Financial Year.
“We did receive a complaint … about a plan to terminate their contracts, yet they had invested heavily and were prepared to supply number plates until the end of the year. The IGG halted the cancellation of their contracts pending further investigations,” Ms Munira Ali said.
The Ombudsman’s order, and the failure by the Russian contractor to supply the new plates, prompted an emergency meeting yesterday attended by top officials of Works and Security ministries and Uganda Revenue Authority (URA).
Officials reportedly agreed that the tax body, which earlier raised red flags over the preparedness of agencies and the Russian firm to roll out the project, retains its old vehicle registration platform.
“For us it will be business as usual, we shall continue normal customs with clearing new motor vehicles at border points as well as issuing them with number plates [until guided otherwise],” said URA Spokesman Ibrahim Bbosa.
Yesterday’s meeting also agreed that existing suppliers continue delivering number plates until such a time when the Russian contractors are able to meet their part of the bargain, and resolved to seek guidance from the Attorney General, the principal government legal advisor, on navigating contract extension without offending the new signing.
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AG Kiryowa Kiwanuka, in reference to the suspension of the issuance of new car number plates from tomorrow, said he had spent most of yesterday at Parliament and was not fully seized of the nitty gritty of the latest developments about the project.
“If the Ministry of Works has told you [that it is true], then it is because they know [as] it is their project. I am a legal advisor. I don’t know about those technical issues,” he said.
However, Security Minister Jim Muhwezi, who reportedly chaired yesterday’s meeting, offered a different account to contradict confirmations by other government notables.
“It is a lie, the company is going ahead with supplying the number plates as it is programmed,” he said by telephone and hang up.
Highly-placed sources said the Russians claimed they had manufactured the digital number plates in neighbouring Poland to circumvent a litany of western sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, but that the host government, which is allied to the anti-Moscow position of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) members, had their hamstrung their intended shipment to Uganda and ordered them to relocate the manufacturing elsewhere.
We could not independently corroborate this narrative, coming three months after a government delegation on a verification mission to Moscow were not shown a single digital car number plate and was, therefore, unable to pretest and ascertain samples would have met government of Uganda specifications.
The new development waters down President Museveni’s five-year long efforts of digitising the transport sector which he in June 2018, shortly after the gunning of then Arua Municipality Member of Parliament Ibrahim Abiriga, listed among his 10-point security strategies.
To implement it, the Ministry of Works and Transport together with its security counterpart on July 23, 2021 contracted JSCGS to supply the number plates.
President Museveni was forced to give a five month extension to JSCGS in March, to enable it to deliver the number plates on July 1.
A batch of about 50,000 licence plates were said to be stuck in Poland where they were reportedly manufactured, officials said.
A sample of the new number plates provided to government officials for review this week did not have the digital chip that the Russian company, JSCGS, says is needed to track the movement of automobiles, officials familiar with the matter said.
Empty hope
Government officials earlier said each of the new digital car plates would cost Shs735,000, and owners of both new and registered vehicles/motorcycle would require to install them.
For the intelligent transport system to run effectively, designers hoped to integrate the plates to support infrastructure, including cameras and data centres. Neither is familiar and the Russians have not publicly made a call to recruit staff to run the project.
This publication first raised questions about the readiness of the roll-out of the new motor vehicle number plate last month.
We revealed that a Ugandan team that travelled to Moscow to conduct due-diligence and pre-shipment inspection of the number plates and associated technology returned empty-handed.
In a report following the visit, the officials noted that existing police Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras could be used to read existing vehicle and motorcycle number plates and achieve the same security goals without new fees and costs.
Investment claim
Following last month’s reporting by this newspaper, Joint Stock Global Security company took out a full-page newspaper advert in which they claimed to have “injected $250m (Shs925b) in the project in Uganda” to produce the new digital vehicle number plates.
However, our investigations show that the fitment centres meant to be set up at the main import points at Mombasa, Busia, Malaba and Mutukula are not in operation.
At Malaba and Mutukula, iron-sheet enclosures were being hastily erected this week, while canvas tents were being set up in some of the imported car bonded warehouses across the capital Kampala.
“I have never seen a million dollars in my life,” said a worker helping to set up a container at Malaba, “but this [construction] cannot cost more than a few million [Uganda] shillings.”
Under the contract signed with the government, the Russian company is supposed to build a factory to manufacture the number plates within the country, but construction of the factory is yet to commence.
Without a factory, motorists who need replacement number plates would have to make special orders and wait several weeks for them to be made in Poland or elsewhere and shipped in.
Internal crisis
Apart from concerns about the delayed supply of the new number plates, government officials who spoke to this newspaper on condition of anonymity, were concerned about the lack of public awareness about the new plate and system.
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Officials, however, are reluctant to hold the Russian firm accountable, since the contract was awarded by presidential directive which clothed it as a “security” project, and without a competitive process.
“These people are untouchable,” a senior government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They say that they are only answerable to the President; so, no one can say anything to them. Even in meetings, even us at Finance we just listen to what they tell us, otherwise they can report you and make life difficult.”
Last week a manager at MoWT resigned from the Motor Vehicle Registration project citing harassment and fears for his life.
In an internal memo seen by this newspaper, Mr Andrew Muhangi said he had been under pressure to cover up shortcomings on the number plate project.
Works Permanent Secretary Waiswa Bageya, however, said the official had not resigned, but had been reverted to the Transport Licensing Board.
“That is where he was before. He had asked for a one-month leave to start in the new placement, but he was told to first report and see how things are moving,” he said.
Background
The government, represented by the Ministry of Works and Transport and the Ministry of Security, contracted M/S Joint Stock Company Global Security in July 2021 to supply digital number plates embedded with tracking chips as part of an Intelligent Transport Monitoring System.
