To deal effectively with matatu culture, you need to understand its peculiar economics

Matatus flouting traffic rules, making U-turns along Moi Avenue, Nairobi, in an undesignated spot. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Matatu drivers have no respect for anybody, including the road authorities.
  • The matatu problem can only be tackled properly if we rethink the entire economics of the matatu business.
  • There are the cartels which man the terminuses, and the others who “own” the routes, who must get their cut.

Minister Fred Matiang’i is mistaken about deregistering driving schools. The problem is not there. The problem is the road culture, especially that practised by matatus and other PSVs and, lately, by boda bodas. The retraining these fellows need is in behaviour and road courtesy.

Matatu drivers are skilled chaps, no question about that. The problem comes in how they use their driving skills. On the road, they are reckless, dangerous, suicidal. Think of any nasty adjective, it fits them.

They have no respect for anybody, including the road authorities. They have been a headache to every government since they came into being. Commuters live with them for lack of an alternative.

Their lack of road manners will never be curbed by legislation. They will simply bribe the enforcers, who are willing players in the game. And life will go on as usual. If they encounter a particularly stubborn type like John Michuki, they will wait for him to be transferred – or to pass on.

The matatu problem can only be tackled properly if we rethink the entire economics of the matatu business.

TRAFFIC RULES

I once came across a study by an NGO in which a normal city Nissan matatu was required to do its trips while strictly keeping within traffic limits and rules, and while not exceeding the number of licensed passengers. At the end of the day, the money collected was short.

It was barely enough to cater for the daily salary (and extras) of the crew, the payments to various cartels and shylocks, fuel, bank loan repayments, deductions for monthly insurance remittances, and so on. The insurance burden, in particular, is stiff.

A matatu is the breadwinner – so to speak – of a very large family and a multitude of parasites. There is the crew – the driver and conductor – and what they pinch on the side.

There are the cartels which man the terminuses, and the others who “own” the routes, who must get their cut. There are the garage owners and the mechanics, who the matatu patronises for repairs and maintenance. Then – and here is the nub – there are the traffic police, whose entire ecosystem feeds on matatus. The NTSA has since happily joined the gravy train. All this before any coin gets to the matatu owner.

CARTELS

Everybody wholeheartedly agrees with Matiang’i that the police traffic department must be overhauled. Completely. Herein is the heart of the rot. It has infected the topmost ranks of the Police Service. Watching the vetting some time back of senior policemen by the National Police Service Commission (NPSC) and hearing of their massive M-Pesa receipts was an eye-opener. A wag in the office concluded that nobody needed to apply to Harvard Business School. Kiganjo Police College was the place.

NPSC’s Johnstone Kavuludi should have sought to know how many of the policemen own matatus. He would have been surprised even more.

CORRUPTION

The government deals with the PSV problem through band-aid measures such as banning night journeys which do not comprehensively confront the corruption of law enforcers and, more importantly, the peculiar business circumstances the PSVs operate under. The NTSA merely gave birth to another layer of bureaucracy to broaden the sleaze in the transport sector. Nor do new traffic rules solve anything. They only create more avenues for traffic policemen to get richer.

Above all, let something be done about PSV drivers. They drive carelessly because they believe that is the way they should do it. Changing this mindset can be done. Once upon a time when the authorities decided peasant farmers must use fertiliser, it was done.

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A failure rate of 13 out of 19 is a high one indeed. If only six cabinet secretaries have made the mark, it is an indication that Uhuru’s government has been well below par. Or could the non-performance be attributable elsewhere beyond the Cabinet?

 Warigi is a socio-political commentator [email protected]