A while back a regulation compelling owners of buildings to install solar heating and power supplying panel systems came and fizzled out in terms of implementation and enforcement.
The law is still in the books but rarely mentioned by those supposed to ensure it is obeyed.
That the regulation faced headwinds immediately it came into force is an understatement.
Requiring owners of residential and commercial buildings to conform to the growing number of regulations in the construction industry in an environment where even owning a house is an impossible task, is to ask for too much.
There is no arguing with the fact that as the world tries to conserve and adopt green energy, alternative means of power are extremely necessary.
However, while doing so, countries are required to take into account obtaining economic conditions that investing citizens are facing in order to formulate realistic sectoral regulations.
In the absence of government subsidies, expecting poor citizens to meet requirements such as solar energy installation in buildings is a tall order.
In this regard, such regulations will always remain in abeyance.
Unless wishing to cause despondency, the regulator can only expect to play a spectator role under the circumstances.
Such regulations are fated to remain so in the unforeseeable future because “the cow has refused”.
The solar law aside, private motorists might be unaware that it is currently illegal to drive an uninspected vehicle that is over four years from the date of manufacture on Kenyan roads.
From May this year, the National Transport Safety Authority (NTSA) commenced the implementation of Section 62 (2) of the Traffic Act, which requires all vehicles over four years to undergo annual inspection at a cost to be borne by owners.
Before this regulation, only public service vehicles (PSVs) were required to be inspected for road safety purpose.
If you are reading this article and owns a vehicle that has not undergone inspection by NTSA, you are liable for an offense punishable under the Traffic Act.
As an affected citizen, I find this regulation obnoxious, ill-conceived and out of touch with reality.
Unless the government is after revenue, the starting point of safety regulations should be at the importation stage.
What is the rationale of permitting importation of vehicles over four years from the date of manufacture into the country in the first place?
To formulate such a regulation under the guise of road safety is extremely insincere and a betrayal to private motorists.
Did the government really engage stakeholders before legislating this law?
If second-hand vehicles are imported after full legal inspection certification at the country of origin, what prevents NTSA to cause local inspection regulation to commence say, after four or five years from the date of importation of private vehicles?
In my view, NTSA should revisit and rewrite this law taking into account the views of vehicle owners in the country.
All of a sudden the government through NTSA has realized that what ails the motor vehicle industry is failure to inspect over 2.3 million vehicles and ensure road users are safe in the country.
Like the solar regulations, the universal vehicle inspection law is most likely going to face stiff opposition from motorists.
Apart from the cost incurred and time spent, comfort of mind is precious to owners of motor vehicles.
Not only will inspection exercise remove thousands of vehicles from the roads, but the motoring sector could be thrown into total disarray and ground to almost complete halt.
NTSA can argue and assure motorists that the inspection exercise could be conducted at motor vehicle owners’ pace but can such discretion work in the Kenyan case?
Perhaps the regulator knows something we don’t, but my opinion is that this is not the time to slap private motorists with this regulation burden.
Since it won’t be the first or last sporous regulation to gather dust in the shelves of implementers’ offices, this regulation should similarly go silent.
Otherwise, let us wait and see how it will be embraced by financially strained and emotionally drained citizens.
It is such laws that prove that there are indeed technocrats who are living in a wonderland in this country.
Kaunda wa Muchunku
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