Murkomen, do things differently to tame accidents

Greetings Onesimus Kipchumba, son of Johana Murkomen. I hope you are well and keeping tabs kwa ground.

Minister, I bring to your attention, in this epistle today, the concerns of Kenyans about the alarming rate of accidents, and which they feel you are snubbing.

First, it is nearly unanimous you shine brighter in politics, public debates and the legal profession. It is indisputable that as senator for Elgeyo Marakwet (2013-22), you brought on board a voice of reason in the august House. In your presence, there was never a dull day in the Senate especially when controversial, sensational and divisive debates arose.

With Mutula Kilonzo Jnr and Senior Counsel James Orengo, among others, you enlivened House debates with charisma, intelligent emotions and calculated humour. Equally, your debates on TV talks hows distinguished you as a brilliant mind with precise legal acumen and an articulate, convincing contributor. Your future in politics was promising.

Sir, on that basis, whoever convinced you out of that space may have been out to set you for failure, unless Kenyans rating you lowly in your current docket are yet to understand your working style.

Murkomen, if anyone were to think of you as a minister, it would be in the Justice and Constitutional Affairs docket. The other ideal progression pathways would be House Speaker, the Attorney General, Solicitor General or Chief Prosecutor.

Fast forward to today, you are the minister for Roads, Transport and Public Works. You are in charge of the roads that have become worse killer than Covid-19, three years ago. To say the least, you are expected to be more worried now than the Health Minister appeared at the peak of Covid deaths.

Otherwise, Murkomen, Kenyans will be justified to feel let down. It should not be business as usual when precious lives are wantonly being lost in preventable accidents.

Granted, if your predecessor, the late John Michuki, whom you have acknowledged as a trailblazer in the sector, was in charge today we would not be talking of proposals but tough real actions and policies to mitigate runaway accidents.

Thankfully, last week you acknowledged the problem in the transport sector and promised to provide a solution. You proposed, among others, the installation of spy cameras on roads and on school bus dashboards to monitor drivers.

Good progress! But, sadly, the agencies the law gives you to work with—the police and National Transport Safety Authority—are part of the problem and need quick fixing!

Former ministers Charity Ngilu, Fred Matiang’i and the late George Magoha, tested and found impromptu visits an effective tool in managing public service delivery.

Every so often, Ngilu, as Health minister and later Kitui Governor, would make surprise visits to county hospitals whenever the public grumbled about malpractices. It certainly improved effectiveness in the facilities, and left a trail of consequences on personnel involved.

Matiang’i tried it on schools suspected to have management issues and soon head teachers were putting their houses in order, fearing they would be visited next. It improved school management a great deal. Magoha continued the trend with a level of success.

Why not try this, sir? Start with NTSA. A lot does not seem to be working right there. Then, regional traffic offices, which are nothing but bribe collection kiosks. Here, you’ll likely ambush seniors receiving reports of bribe collection from juniors who man ‘toll stations’ disguised as roadblocks.

You may also find PSVs impounded for noncompliance and their owners or operators queueing to ‘shake hands’ with the seniors.

Lastly, which is a tall order given your status, try road transport, not on official fuel-guzzlers but on taxis or, for better results, matatu. You’ll agree we no longer need officers at roadblocks. They never check the stickers on windscreens anymore; all they do is collect bribes and salute overloaded or unroadworthy cars to proceed to the next accident scene.

Sir, we do not need more policies, but implementers with the right intentions. Until we fix the police and NTSA, we’ll live longer with the current situation.

—The writer is an editor with People Daily —[email protected]