Matatu owners can end police bribery today

The single biggest problem on Kenyan roads today is the bribing of traffic police by matatus. This vice is so entrenched that it has become systematised, and every matatu on the road is obligated to pay these ‘tithes’ as part and parcel of the business.

The money that traffic police collect on Kenyan roads can run the State. The government sees no evil, hears no evil, and speaks no evil. So this vice continues unabated.

Consequently, there is so much matatu chaos on Kenyan roads. Police bribery is the No. 1 reason for the horrific matatu accident statistics. Secure in having paid their ‘tithes’, matatus know they are now fully protected and do not have to follow traffic rules. So they don’t!

This unholy alliance between matatus and traffic police has been responsible for dispatching thousands of innocent Kenyans to untimely deaths, and others to a life of disability. Perennial public outrage has changed nothing.

This alliance has managed to smother all efforts aimed at bringing sanity to roads. The government is impotent. The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) is moribund and should just be disbanded as a failed experiment. The Ethics and AntiCorruption Commission (EACC) is also a failure and a huge disgrace!

There is only one entity that can change this – matatu owners. If matatu owners, through their associations, including the Matatu Owners Association (MOA), wanted to end bribing traffic police, it would happen in one day!

Matatu owners can ban police bribery. They can issue an edict to their drivers, that from tomorrow, they should not pay a single cent in bribes to any traffic policeman. Traffic policemen will react as expected – impound the matatus. Let them. By 8am of the first morning, hundreds of matatus will have been impounded countrywide.

The next day the same thing will happen but the matatu owners should not relent. By the third day, police will have run out of space to park the impounded matatus. Courts will be overwhelmed with fake charges as the traffic police try to break down the matatus.

By the end of the third day, it will be clear to the government that it must act to resolve this crisis manufactured by traffic police. The police will have been exposed. The back of the slavery that traffic police have kept matatus under will have been broken. From that moment on, any traffic policeman who asks for a bribe will be given the middle finger. It is in the best interest of the matatu owners to break these chains and stop haemorrhage of millions daily from their businesses to those who reap where they did not sow!

Matatu owners must bring all hands on deck. Rope in the Law Society of Kenya to be ready countrywide in courts to ensure the rights of the crews are upheld. The Chief Justice to ensure speedy, even sympathetic, treatment of crews because this will be a national war against corruption.

Matatu owners can expect huge public support if they launch this initiative. The public has previously happily undergone a painful transition period to clean up this sector that kills them daily.

But he who comes to the court of equity must do so with clean hands, so the saying goes. Matatu owners must be ready to live up to their obligations under the public service vehicle guidelines, the so-called Michuki Rules. They were fully compliant before. They can go back there again. Instal speed limiters, drop only at designated stops, matatu crews adorned in uniforms … they know the drill.

One man, the late minister for transport, John Michuki, took on the entire sector to bring sanity. He succeeded with huge public support. The then chairman of MOA, Simon Kimutai, led the matatu owners resistance then, which Michuki broke in days.

The Michuki legend lives on in posterity as the man who dared – and succeeded. Kimutai has the gravitas to lead the second matatu revolution on behalf of the people to change the broken system forever.

Sir, destiny is calling you!

— gathukara@gmail.com