The Nairobi-based Toyota distributor has signed to supply leased fleet vehicles to several Government departments, starting with the Kenyan Police.

George Kuria, director of Telematics Africa, helped to put the Chevin deal together and said: ‘The Government of Kenya has for some time been expressing a desire to lease vehicles instead of outright purchase but the plan remained in limbo until there was a change of government under a new constitution last year.

‘With Toyota being the most popular vehicle in the country, it was chosen as the first to pilot the new lease project. It is expected that once the programme gets underway, it will be rolled to all Ministries and other Government bodies.

‘The new Government has promised to lease even more vehicles for its corporations and our expectations is to monitor some 12,000 vehicles on FleetWave, a huge project by Kenyan fleet standards.’

Mr Kura said that Chevin’s FleetWave had been chosen by Toyota to manage the project following a product demonstration and competitive tender.

He explained: ‘FleetWave is being used by Toyota to monitor costs on vehicles leased out to Government customers including factors such as repair times and the elimination or reduction of any undesirable expenses.’

Ashley Sowerby, managing director at Chevin, added: ‘We now have quite a number of FleetWave systems operating very successfully in Africa and we are very pleased to have signed this new deal.’