In just a few weeks ago I was travelling from Nakuru city to Migori county visiting a place called Mabera for a mission. I was travelling with two other friends who are also members of our church. We had booked the vehicle in advance that is a day before the very day of travelling. The driver of the vehicle came to take me from our residence. We started off our journey well. This is the day I was really shocked about the corruption in Kenyan roads. Obvious there are various points of stop over and check by the traffic police. This stop over and checks are meant to ensure that road safety is maintained. The police officers have a due duty to inspect vehicles that are unfit to offer transport services and ensure that they have a valid insurance cover. The vehicles that are unfit are supposed to be flashed out of our roads and declared not to be used in public transport.
As we got out of the city, we approached the first point of check. The driver slowed down and it is when I started to realize how corrupt the Kenyan traffic police are. The police officer came and purported to be inspecting the validity of the insurance cover for the vehicle by looking at the windscreen. The conductor or tout stretched the hand through the window and handed over the money to the police officer in unnoticeable manner. The tout folded the fifty or hundred shilling note and it became so minute that it becomes too small to see or notice it. With every stop over money was dished out and imagine from Nakuru to Mabera in Kuria, how many stop over and checks could be Several of them. The bribes in Kenyan roads are rampant and almost everybody is very much comfortable with it and it is never seen as breaking the law.
What went wrong ? This is the question that each and every individual needs to ask himself or herself, if we are to liberate this country from the chains of corruption that have taken root beneath the ground. Kenya needs the current, “NO NONESENCE” men like the late Michuki who came up with great reforms in the transport sector. He brought sanity in our roads by introducing stringent rules of traffic during President Mwai Kibaki’s tenure. The police only collect those bribes and put them into their pockets, this denies the government of Kenya a lot of revenue that goes to some individual’s pockets. This vice is sort of evil because, owners of the vehicles also lose a lot of money that could have been reinvested into profitable projects and create more job opportunities. Taking of bribes is very much primitive and backward since it is only those corrupt police officers who become beneficiaries of the money they steal from the public. Again these corrupt police officers are being paid by public’s contribution of taxes. This is retrogression and if this type of corruption is not fought by all means the transport sector will remain a menace.
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