Nyayo pioneer: At last Kenya gets a car to call its own

By WAWERU MUGO

NAIROBI, KENYA: The story is told of how former President Moi in the 1980s asked the University of Nairobi to come up with a car “however ugly or slow it may be”. And sure, the engineers went to work and the car finally rolled off the production lines few years later.

But as designer and researcher Jonathan Kasumba writes in his Africa Automotive Design Association blog, “The cars were not ugly. They were not very slow (either). During the test runs, the cars could attain a speed of 120km per hour!”

With fanfare, five prototypes of the car christened “Nyayo Pioneer” were launched in 1990. This was good news, a Kenyan-made vehicle had arrived.

It generated interest and catalysed the dream of a car everyone could afford. According to the government, the objective of the project was “to come out with a car that would be affordable, efficient and useful to the people of this country”.

However, this was not to be. From the world go, the Nyayo Car project was destined to fail, or so it seemed. “When the President tried to start the car, it stalled and never showed signs of life,” asserts editors of a book Nairobi Today: The Paradox of a Fragmented City.

It would occur nearly Sh1 billion shillings later, that the efforts of engineers, other academics and experts at the university, the Kenya Railways Corporation (KR), Department of Defence, National Council of Science and Technology and the Kenya Polytechnic had come to nil. But alas, it would later emerge, that the haste with which the project was implemented and its mishandling scrambled Moi’s genuine efforts to have an automobile Kenyans could afford.

John Makong’o and other authors in their History and Government secondary school textbook write, “The Nyayo Car project failed with questions being raised about financial probity of its officials.”

FAULTY SYSTEM

The funds guzzler, reports indicate eventually folded up when the government would no longer inject money required for the Sh7.8 billion budget for the cars’ mass production. The machine’s engine and body were also too heavy while the transmission system was faulty.

Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, the mercurial Trade and Industry minister would in April 2004 explain to an attentive Parliament how the idea was conceived. The “ill-conceived project” as he called it was carried out top secret, gobbling up finances at will and finally screeching to an expected halt.  

“The declaration to build a car manufacturing company was made at a public function by the former President, during a graduation ceremony in 1983. He asked the university why it could not make a car,” Kituyi said in reply to Prof Ayiecho Olweny’s (Muhoroni MP) question on the Car Project.

Kituyi said that the Nyayo Car Project cost the Kenya Government and taxpayers Sh668,939,609. Five prototypes of the Nyayo Pioneer were made before it (project) folded up as a car manufacturing enterprise.

He explained that in 1990, all the major (foreign) donors to Kenya told the government to close down all non-performing parastatals. Knowing too well that the Nyayo Car Project was such one non-viable unit, “the Government pretended to close down the project and instead made it a secret project.”

To the shock and consternation of MPs, he spilled more beans, “So, even the terms of its employees, the operations of the company, the accounts of its operations and the destination of its products became hidden matters for donors to be hoodwinked.”

However, questions on how much money Kenyans lost to the project still linger. Earlier in June 1997, Transport and Communications Assistant Minister William Morogo told Parliament that at the time, research was still ongoing to right defects on the already developed prototype. So far, he added, Sh737 million had been invested in the Nyayo Car Project which had since changed its name to Numerical Machinery Complex Ltd (NMC).

In an interesting debate that followed, Githunguri MP Njehu Gatabaki wondered whether Kenya had the capacity to manufacture a car.

Owino Achola (MP, Migori) who had raised the debate on the matter would ask, “Could the assistant minister confirm or deny the real reason why this project was set up?” He said the project had sunk with the Sh700 million.

ACHIEVEMENTS

But despite the collapse of the project, Dr Kituyi outlined several project achievements. They included the revamping of the old foundry of KR into a state-of-the-art foundry, the installation of computer numerical control and computer-aided design and manufacturing machines, Parliament’s Hansard reports.

NMC that had since abandoned car manufacturing as its prime objective for spare parts production had further developed a small air compressor; an eight horsepower engine, Kituyi told MPs. “Several local automotive industries such as auto springs and all parts casting have been put in place in anticipation of production or subcontracting of parts.”

The enterprise was all set for capital goods manufacturing, it emerged, and the company was a key supplier of parts to Kenya, Uganda Railways corporations and Magadi Railways among others.

The NARC government, Kituyi would say was keen to restructure the 1,000 acre rich NMC together with strategic partners with the aim of “commercialising its activities” and making it the “nucleus of a capital manufacturing industry”.

Eric Nyamunga (the Nyando MP and previously Managing Director KR) seemed to concur with Matiba’s “re-invention of the wheel” and demanded that Kituyi justify the high financial spending. It was at this point Kituyi gave his verdict: “I think the development of a Kenyan manufactured car is a viable idea. However, I think the design and financing at the time was ill-conceived and not justified.”

His comments on viability to manufacture a Kenyan car were supported by various government functionaries. Vice-President Wamalwa Kijana was quoted in February 2003 saying the government was hunting for an investor to help revive the moribund project.

Fast forward to 2010 and 2011. Industrialisation PS Karanja Kibicho and Assistant Minister Nderitu Muriithi respectively said the government planned to revive the car project.