No apologies from Mathira’s Mr Moneybags
The anti-jigger campaigns spearheaded by beauty queens hardly elicit political controversy.
The latest high-profile stop by the campaigners held in Mathira constituency’s Ragati Primary School last Saturday would likewise have gone unnoticed.
But two factors made the difference.
The presence of current Miss World, Alexandria Mills, and half a dozen other beauties, and the glitter at the function brought some excitement to an otherwise poverty-ridden background.
The beauties, who were hosted for lunch by local MP Ephraim Maina at his home, which is in the school’s neighbourhood, had been airlifted by two helicopters from Nairobi by the lawmaker.
It was this display of opulence and world-class beauty juxtaposed with sights and scenes of grinding poverty that gave the MP’s critics a field day in local market conversations.
The jigger menace, they pointed out, is a direct offshoot and the boldest statement of poverty.
The cost of fuelling the choppers and underwriting the function’s bill, they added, would have gone a long way in heaving several families out of poverty — or at least sponsoring some paramedics to show numerous families how to live jigger-free.
They also pointed out that bringing Miss Universe to such a function would only affirm the stereotypes held by Western nations that Africa is all about debilitating poverty and disease.
The helicopter story in Mathira attracts such and other comments from all and sundry.
The closest the people of Mathira could come in describing the chopper was referring to the blades which, in the local language, translates to kibiririki. After dropping from the skies a few times, the University of Nairobi trained civil engineer acquired a new name: mundu wa kibiririki which translates to the ‘‘man of the rotor blades’’.
For his detractors, the chopper defines a brazen display of the legislator’s immense wealth. But for the MP, the chopper is just a tool to facilitate speedy movement to meet the requirements of a clouded diary.
“First, the chopper is mine. I bought it because I have the need for it. In addition to attending the needs of my constituents, I have engagements in Parliament and my private businesses to attend to. The chopper helps me to move between Nairobi and Mathira in a matter of minutes,” says Mr Maina.
Then there is the flamboyance with which he spends his money.
The local grapevine is tall with tales about Mr Maina’s penchant to flaunt his wealth. At one time, he is reported to have told crowds that he was rich enough to supply banknotes as fuel to cook githeri to feed the entire constituency.
Ever unrepentant, Mr Maina responds: “If using my money to help out people in need amounts to flamboyance, so be it. I love my people.”
Mr Maina says he has always been a generous man even long before joining politics. He cites numerous development projects he spearheaded before joining Parliament, his favourite being bringing electricity to Ragati, the village of his birth.
In Parliament, the MP is credited with a Bill that sought to reintroduce price controls on basic commodities such as maize flour. While the Bill received near unanimous backing in Parliament, economists had a field day tearing the proposed Bill apart, arguing that it ignored the fundamentals of a free market economy.
President Kibaki declined to give his assent and sent it back to the House.
“It is all very well to argue about a free market, but people need affordable food today, not tomorrow,” he said. He intends to revive the crusade for price controls when Parliament resumes.
Among his colleagues in Parliament, there is an unspoken but quiet deference to the wealth of the man referred to as “Engineer”.
In Parliament, Mr Maina accidentally referred to Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko as “Tobino” and, for a time, his colleagues nicknamed him “Tobina” after the popular song by Daddy Owen.
Mr Maina made a name for himself through his Kirinyaga Construction Company, an outfit with public sector projects across the country, which easily puts him in the billionaires club. The company has spread its wings to South Sudan.
The same construction company could very well be his political Achille’s heel. In the sunset of the Moi administration, the firm was awarded a contract to reconstruct the Sagana-Marua road, which cuts through Kirinyaga and Nyeri districts and straight through the heart of his constituency, Mathira. It has been a source of discontent for constituents and other road users, who feel it has taken inordinately long to complete.
Mr Maina says the delays have been caused by disagreements between his company and the government. While locals maintain the road is yet to be completed, citing lack of crucial components like marking, Mr Maina says the road is complete as per the specifications of the contract.
He recalls that when he started the company, he landed contracts to put up water and sewerage systems for various municipalities.
“This was possible because then Local Government minister Moses Mudavadi had a policy of promoting indigenous companies because he felt the construction industry was in the hands of foreigners,’ says the MP.
Among the contracts he got in earlier days included the Sh6 billion Mombasa Water Supply funded by the World Bank. Others were in Kandara, Kitale, Kericho, Thika, Nyeri, Sidindi and Murang’a municipalities. Before joining politics, Mr Maina made a controversial entry into the public limelight immediately after Narc was elected to power.
Some time early in 2003, Mr Maina hosted a goat-eating party for a number of Cabinet ministers soon after they had attended a presidential function at Sagana State Lodge, which also happens to be in Mathira.
The party took place at a time when then Roads minister Raila Odinga had introduced the term “cowboy contractors” into the local lexicon to describe road builders who allegedly swindled the government out of money through shoddy and incomplete jobs.
The goat eating party would have gone unnoticed had then Mathira MP Nderitu Gachagua not issued a press statement alluding to unnamed contractors who he accused of feting Cabinet ministers to buy influence.
That marked the beginning of a bare-knuckled political war between Mr Maina and Mr Gachagua, which is still ongoing. However, with the passage of a new Constitution and creation of county governments, the two are unlikely to meet at the constituency level.
Mr Gachagua has already launched his campaign for Nyeri County governorship while Mr Maina remains non-committal about the position he will be going for, maintaining that early campaigns will divert attention from his current development agenda.
