Ministry must stay the course on matatu reforms

The Central Bank of Kenya building in Nairobi. The domestic debt has reduced by Sh24.4bn since the beginning of August. FILE

The latest attempt by the government to restore sanity in the chaotic and
criminal infested public transport system may have come too late in the day, but must be pursued with all the vigour it requires anyway.

The cost to the Kenyan economy of the noise and air pollution, the heavy log jams in cities such as Nairobi and Mombasa, the frequent road carnage and the senseless slaughter of ordinary people that goes with it should have pricked the conscience of a right thinking society to take drastic measures decades ago.

And it is not rocket science to diagnose what ails this key sector of our economy. Over the years, authorities have refused to see transport as a valuable segment of the economy worth applying strict regulation for orderliness, fair competition and the security of the users.

It has over the years been left in the hands of greedy investors and criminal gangs to control with devastating consequences.

To date, the Kenyan public transport system stands among the world’s most chaotic and dangerous --its most outstanding characteristics being reckless speeding, overloading, noise pollution and badly remunerated crew that knows not who batters their bread.

Given the darkly history of reforms in the public transport sector, one can only wait to see if the Jubilee government of Uhuru Kenyatta will have the spine to rein in the rogues who have nearly come to hold the country hostage.

Key tenets of the proposed reforms such as those restricting investing in the sector to duly registered companies with at least five vehicles and with formally employed crew go to the heart of the problem.

This is because the speeding that takes place on the roads, the unwillingness to abide by traffic laws and the hooliganism are all rooted in greed -- the urgency among crew to make as many trips as possible in order to increase their day’s earnings.

Having the operators also craft and publish a timetable of services and fares will also go along way to eliminating the uncertainty of transport costs in their monthly budgets.

In many economies around the world, transport is a robust sector that contributes a significant portion of the tax revenues and GDP, besides offering a critical public good whose proper supply supports other sectors of the economy.

But instead, ours is a rogue sector whose most visible products are log jams, mass killing and huge insurance compensation running into billions of shillings every year. It is for these reasons that we support the latest effort to rid the transport sector of the criminals and greedy proprietors.