Judiciary buys 40 luxury fuel guzzlers for judges

The Judiciary has bought 40 new Mercedes Benz limousines for judges appointed since January, barely two years after the government banned the purchase of luxury fuel-guzzlers for public servants.

The last batch of the vehicles was delivered in September, raising queries about the consistency of the vehicle policy which was meant to cut public spending.

The courts also acquired dozens of expensive four-wheel drive Toyota Prados and Land Rovers for magistrates and judges in upcountry stations.

It was not immediately clear whether the government had lifted its ban on fuel guzzlers which saw top government and parastatal officials forced to surrender the luxury cars for the more economical 2,000-litre engine Volkswagen Passats. (READ: Parliament, Judiciary ordered to surrender luxury vehicles)

The Chief Registrar of the Judicial Service Commission, Mrs Gladys Shollei, did not respond to queries from the Nation regarding the purchase.

An executive at DT Dobie, the local franchise holder for Mercedes Benz, who did not want to be named because she is not the official spokesperson confirmed that the Judiciary bought the limousines between January and September.

As a result of the Judiciary order, sales grew by 33.7 per cent within nine months, making Mercedes Benz the highest selling luxury vehicle in the country ahead of other top of the range models such as BMW.

Data from the Kenya Motor Industry Association (KMI) shows that the two top dealers of luxury cars, the Simba Colt Motors which sells the BMW model and DT Dobie, sold 194 units of new luxury cars, up from 145 units last year.

The nine-month sales are just 24 units shy of the 218 sold in 2009, the peak year. Luxury car dealers attributed the boon to lower cost of credit, coupled with new demand from the government. 

This came as total new vehicle sales dropped 4.7 per cent to 9,068 units in the same period, indicating a boom for high-end car dealers. The units cost between Sh6 million and Sh20 million each.

“Higher sales in the luxury segment have been helped by the relatively low cost of borrowing in recent months,” said Dinesh Kotecha, the executive director of Simba Corporation.

DT Dobie also deals in Jeep Grand Cherokee luxury cars whose sales rose to 28 units from 16 units last year.

This combined with Mercedes sales, which rose to 90 in the nine months to September from 65 in the same period last year, pushed its market share to 61 per cent compared to 56 per cent in September last year.

Simba Colt sold 43 units of BMW from 24, making it the second largest luxury dealer, but its market share fell to 22 from 19 per cent last year.

CMC Holdings, which sells Jaguar, Land Rover Discovery and Freelander models, increased unit sales to 33 units from 30, while its market share dropped from 21 to 17 per cent.

Dealers say most of the high-end cars are financed through bank loans, adding that the recent drop in commercial bank lending rates is bringing companies and wealthy individuals back to the showrooms.

Banks raised their base lending rates to more than 25 per cent in the first quarter of they year following the move by the central bank to raise its signal lending rate to a record 18 per cent in December last year.

Additional report by Victor Juma