You will not be able to register, change particulars or transfer ownership of a car manually as from today. The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) has officially scraped off manual transaction of vehicle registration following the lapse of a six month grace period given to motorists and business persons in June, 2016.

From today, motor vehicle dealers and motorists will be subjected primarily to paperless system of vehicle registration.

This is part of the Sh800 million Transport Trans Integrated Management System (TIMS). In June, the transport authority had unveiled an online platform where such transactions were supposed to be transferred to.

The system had been piloted first with motorcycles before being introduced to car dealers. At the time, all motorists were required to verify details of their cars to ensure they are in their own names.

The manual transactions that will now be conducted online through e-citizen platform will also include online car search using either registration or chassis number, duplicate logbook application, reflective number plate application and vehicle inspection. In a notice published on December 13, 2016, NTSA had asked individual car owners, companies, motor vehicle dealers and financial institutions to create their profiles in the TIMS by December 31.

“All persons holding on to transfer forms are required to submit them to the nearest NTSA offices for processing,” said NTSA Director General Francis Meja. He added: “From January 1, 2017 NTSA will not accept any manual submission of transfer of ownership applications (Form C).”

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Other services already online are driving licence issuance, renewal and application for road service licence.

So far, motorcycles are still the largest motor vehicles being registered in the country (54 per cent) followed by station wagons (six per cent) and lorries at three per cent, according to the 2015 data.

The new registration system according to Mr Meja will not only reduce the amount taken to get a log book from 30 days to 10 minutes, but will also secure income for the government (by 70 per cent) by weeding out cartels.