By XN Iraki
Owning a car is every person’s dream right from very young age. We come to know the good models long before we have driven any. Some end up owning cars of various sizes and shapes.
The vast majority, keep the dream alive till nature wins and they find their way reluctantly under the sod. The few who own the car quickly discover that the reality of ownership is very different from the dreams.
The reasons advanced for car ownership, include convenience and efficiency. You do more with less. It is also an open secret that the car is a status symbol, telling a lot about your socio-economic class. These are noble reasons for owning a car, but they are often outweighed by the costs of running it.
Trouble with car ownership starts when buying, the Government charges a hefty tax long before you put the car on the road. The assumption is that no poor people buy cars.
The Government has done its economics and knows we love conspicuous consumption and are willing to pay it. More annoying is that the “mitumba cars” we import are overpriced with Africa as a perfect dumping ground.
Driving mitumba cars is real serfdom; they are more expensive than new cars in the long run.
The widely held belief that a car means money is what leads the owners to become economic serfs, better slaves.
Good drivers
The insurer quickly joins to ensure that your serfdom is reinforced. It is interesting that lots of car owners have no life insurance. Insurers have declared all car owners guilty till proved innocent.
They start by charging a hefty 7. 5 per cent of your car value, which decreases if you are accident-free, or in their jargon, you get a no claim discount.
Should it not be another way round, you start low, say 3 per cent then have the premium increased if you claim or cause accidents — after all there is evidence you are risky? Why punish good drivers?
Once the car is on the road so many people celebrate. Someone will sell you tires, and another one will buy the old ones. It is not clear why a certain community from Eastern Kenya has monopoly of buying old tires. Another one from Lake Region has monopolised panel beating. An alarm will be needed.
The police will get something if you over speed or forget your lifesavers. Your neighbours and friends are more likely to ask for harambee money from you if you own a car. Carjackers are also there...
Modern cars
Then there is petrol whose price rarely comes down. And these days, parking is even more expensive than fuelling. More fuel is burnt waiting in traffic snarl-ups then actual movement. There is no greater slavery than owning a car!
His serfdom is ensured by the fact that a car is addictive. Once you get one, you want to keep it and use it. That is why the government derives lots of money from motorists.
The status symbol part of the car is another road to serfdom. We want bigger and more modern cars to stand out from the crowd. Manufacturers know that ands charge you through the nose. But you love that because it raises your status.
Given the multiplier effect, should we not start manufacturing cars in Kenya? We would create lots of jobs in a country with high levels of unemployment.
The excuse given that the market is not big enough is not convincing. South Korea has a population almost equal to Kenya’s yet she exports cars. If our market is not big enough, export.
National pride
We have iron ore to make steel, a key input in car manufacturing. We have coal in Kitui to smelt that iron ore cheaply. We have oil now to make the plastic parts of the car. We can plant rubber for making tires. We have all the ingredients needed to make cars, except the will.
In 1980, when Nyayo car was launched, Hyundai brought a sedan called Pony to Kenya. It never sold well. Koreans refined it to what it is today, from sedans to SUVs. Today, Hyundai is one of Toyota’s greatest competitors.
Our Nyayo car never went far. The cars were not ugly. They were not very slow. During the test runs, the cars could attain a speed of 120km/h, according to a project engineer who used to drive the cars along Mombasa Road to as far as Sultan Hamud. Surprising, Kenyans were “happy” that Nyayo car failed.
They were even asking who could buy it. We are the only country I know in the world that celebrates failure. Obama used public funds to cushion the then floundering GM.
Imagine if today we had a choice between Nyayo Mallo or Nyayo Njamba and Toyota Camry? Imagine Kenyans coming up with creative names for car models instead of illegal brews?
Think of the national pride from owning a car brand. The best way to emancipate ourselves from economic and mental serfdom of cars is to start manufacturing them.
Fifty years is enough waiting time and the basic design of the car has not changed for a century. Why should other nations be landing spacecrafts on other planets while we can’t make a simple machine to roll on this small planet? Although Numerical Machining Complex converted to manufacture of spare parts, the dream of making our own car is not lost.
