The heavy rains over the past few weeks have exposed the depths to which this nation has sunk. In the eighties, just as Nyayoism was
taking root, the streets and surface drains were free-flowing. Garbage
was the responsibility of the City Council of Nairobi and the sewerage
ever blocked. One still needed to go through every single step required
to buy land and build a house on it. By the mid-nineties, it was clear
that Nyayoism was but a camouflage for the gross corruption
that had taken root in the government; it had become a weapon to be used
against the few that had chosen to take a stand against the greed of
the ruling KANU apparatchiks.
Today, though, if you are lucky enough to be in the middle class that can afford a set of wheels, the rains have proven that the Nairobi local government is an abject failure and its recent ISO certification is a cruel joke. Driving in Nairobi in the best of times is a nightmare. Millions of man hours are lost every year to productive workers stuck in traffic. Millions more will be lost this year because of the rains and the havoc that it keeps on wreaking on the free flow of traffic. It is natural to blame the rain for the chaos, but it would be better to lay the blame on a combination of factors from the apathy of voters to the corruption in the City Council and the Ministry of Local Government to the liberalisation of the transport sector (after the collapse of public transport) to the impunity that infuses every aspect of our day to day lives. Anyone that can claim to be an honest citizen under these very trying circumstances should be awarded an Oscar for their performance.
If one examines traffic-congested cities around the world, one feature stands out: large-scale mass transit systems that may be losing money but also ensure that large swathes of the middle classes use their vehicles infrequently but instead rely on rail and bus transport to get to their places of employment in the shortest time possible. Nairobi, until the KANU system was done with it, had an effective and efficient bus transport system that was not only predictable but affordable for the millions that used it every year. The road network, though inextensive, served the few thousand drivers on the road well and the pavements catered for the hundreds thousands more who walked to work. Today, you either drive to work or ride the inefficient bust system. In the hierarchy of pubic transport, at the bottom you will find the fourteen-seat matatus that have become the bane of public transport in Nairobi, then the evil twins of the City Hoppa and City Shuttle bus companies, then the myriad SACCOs that run bus companies then the Kenya Bus Service and the Double M company.
Coupled with the failure of the government to anticipate the requirements of the travelling public and the failure of local authorities to police all developments in their jurisdictions, the traffic challenges are set to get worse if there is no intervention. The flooding occurring in parts of Nairobi's suburbs and exurbs are proof that our obsession with profit over social good has come back to bite us. The hours motorists spend stranded on the road to and from work are an indictment of the City Council and its ilk for failing to manage developments of all kinds and permitting developers to run roughshod over the little people in their quest for ever greater profits. As a result, roads are built but they are poorly designed to cope with the increasingly massive numbers of drivers, housing developments are going up but they do not take into account things like topography or hydrology, and public transport keeps going to the dogs while our elected representative rent-seek with the best of them. Like Chairman Mao said, it is darkest before it goes completely black.
Today, though, if you are lucky enough to be in the middle class that can afford a set of wheels, the rains have proven that the Nairobi local government is an abject failure and its recent ISO certification is a cruel joke. Driving in Nairobi in the best of times is a nightmare. Millions of man hours are lost every year to productive workers stuck in traffic. Millions more will be lost this year because of the rains and the havoc that it keeps on wreaking on the free flow of traffic. It is natural to blame the rain for the chaos, but it would be better to lay the blame on a combination of factors from the apathy of voters to the corruption in the City Council and the Ministry of Local Government to the liberalisation of the transport sector (after the collapse of public transport) to the impunity that infuses every aspect of our day to day lives. Anyone that can claim to be an honest citizen under these very trying circumstances should be awarded an Oscar for their performance.
If one examines traffic-congested cities around the world, one feature stands out: large-scale mass transit systems that may be losing money but also ensure that large swathes of the middle classes use their vehicles infrequently but instead rely on rail and bus transport to get to their places of employment in the shortest time possible. Nairobi, until the KANU system was done with it, had an effective and efficient bus transport system that was not only predictable but affordable for the millions that used it every year. The road network, though inextensive, served the few thousand drivers on the road well and the pavements catered for the hundreds thousands more who walked to work. Today, you either drive to work or ride the inefficient bust system. In the hierarchy of pubic transport, at the bottom you will find the fourteen-seat matatus that have become the bane of public transport in Nairobi, then the evil twins of the City Hoppa and City Shuttle bus companies, then the myriad SACCOs that run bus companies then the Kenya Bus Service and the Double M company.
Coupled with the failure of the government to anticipate the requirements of the travelling public and the failure of local authorities to police all developments in their jurisdictions, the traffic challenges are set to get worse if there is no intervention. The flooding occurring in parts of Nairobi's suburbs and exurbs are proof that our obsession with profit over social good has come back to bite us. The hours motorists spend stranded on the road to and from work are an indictment of the City Council and its ilk for failing to manage developments of all kinds and permitting developers to run roughshod over the little people in their quest for ever greater profits. As a result, roads are built but they are poorly designed to cope with the increasingly massive numbers of drivers, housing developments are going up but they do not take into account things like topography or hydrology, and public transport keeps going to the dogs while our elected representative rent-seek with the best of them. Like Chairman Mao said, it is darkest before it goes completely black.
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