 Yes, we are back with Why End the Morning, and it's entrepreneurship Tuesday on Why End the Morning, and we'd like to focus on the public transport system. So the public transport system dates back to the 1930s in Kenya, and it has evolved over time, and now we have over 80 percent of Kenyans using the public transport system. And talking about evolution, now we are looking at having the introduction of the bus rapid transit. We have the Chairman of the Matatu's and Boda Boda Owners Federation in the studio with us to talk more about this, and let him introduce himself, Garibu Sana. Hello, Sana. Yes, my name is Kushian Mushiri. I'm the Chairman of the Matatu and Boda Boda Operators Federation, and yes, I'm here to discuss Matatu and Boda Boda. Yes. Right after there were complaints about the Matatu's Matatu Owners Association of Kenya, right? So maybe you can paint a picture for us. What led into the, what led to the formation of this federation? Because Kenyans already knew about the Matatu Owners Association, so they were kind of getting confused in the, in between here. I understand that. I understand the confusion that Kenyans were in. And this confusion was brought about by our laxity as the, as the Matatu Owners. You see for the last 35 years, we've allowed cartels to run this industry. Any time you talk about issues Matatu, the first thing that will come to mind of any Kenyan is the name Kimutai, the name Bogwa. People who have been here for over 35 years, they dealt, they started dealing with the Kenyatta, they dealt with the Moe, they dealt with Kibaki, they dealt with the Uhuru, now they want to even deal with the grandson of Uhuru. These are the kind of things that we've now said they have to come to a stop because by then you see the Matatu industry is self-regulated. And everybody is, gets, is up to get something for himself. So we didn't very quite much rely on associations or anything. So that's how we were able to allow them to sneak through and the Papus to represent us. But the minute they stepped on our tools, and I can tell you they stepped hard. They went to government, some few elements in government, high placed, and they told them that here, we have a deal, the Matatu owners have agreed to move out of the CBD. They have agreed to face out the 14 sitters so that we can decogenze the city. And the government through the CS transport and the architect of this thing, PS, namely Hingamuora took those people, a group of 18 Cattels, they took them to, now 16. They took them to China, took them to Bogota, took them to South Africa. Where they even were able to talk about these buses, get a price for them. And that's why we are here. Alright, so are you against them working with the government or are you against, let me phrase it this way. So you guys are not going to collude with the government in terms of providing better transport solutions for the Kenyans. I think that is far from the truth. We will work with government, but as the real owners of these vehicles, as the real investors, and as the real elected officials, you see these guys do not go there so that they can help the Moana Inchi. Case in example, these buses, these 64 buses that are in the high seas coming to Kenya, government through the CS Masharia for transport, contacted GM, they contracted GM. GM contracted a well-known company, Lab Singh Hamansing, which is just there near the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Those are renowned people who make buses for East and Central Africa and locally in Kenya. They made those BRT buses. If you want to see those buses, you just go to GM. Those buses are there, the BRT, the high capacity buses, they are there. They made them, but P.S. Hingamuaura and the group of, they were 18. They were 18, of which after the 18, six, or the only six members had vehicles. And two of those members are the ones that came out and gave us this information and told us, guys, as you are sleeping, our birthright has been sold. The remaining 16 colluded with P.S. Hingamuaura and decided that these buses that have been made locally by our local industries will not benefit them. Why? Here in Kenya, they were worth less than 10 million, actually below even 8 million. But in South African China, they were getting a deal of 25 million. And this is not the first time we are hearing of such a case scenario in this country. Now, your guess is as good as mine. Where is this extra 17 million going? So this is not about bettering the transport system in Nairobi or CBD or in Kenya. It's about some selfish individuals who want to make a killing out of the government will to better the transport industry. We appreciate the waste of blowing, but would you consider the Federation having a national appeal as compared to the Matatu Owners Association of Kenya? Because we've known this Matatu Owners Association for a while. We grew up with it. No, we've not grown up with it. We were born and found it there. It has existed almost 40 years. So do you think your Federation has that national appeal and can represent each and every Matatu Owner from Mombasa to Busia, from Namanga all the way to Turkana? It's not a matter of believing. It's a fact. It's a fact because the Federation, even its representation, like now, this Federation is for Matatu and border-border operators. Now, this Federation is formed of associations, circles and companies limited from Kenya. And just to be clear, we recently had his Excellency, Governor Ferdinand Waitito of Kiambu, who has for the last two months been coming out strongly because he understands that Kenyans have been duped. And even the government has been duped by Cattails through this P.S. Hinger. The C.S. has been misled to being told things that are not true. Now, Governor Waitito realized that the problem we were having in this country is that we had so many associations trying to fight the Cattails. And he took the initiative, his county being one of those counties being affected by this BRT, we call it the Namata, where we have five counties. That is Kajiado, Machakos, Nairobi, Muranga and Kiambu. These are the five counties being affected now for the pilot project. So he convened the meeting whereby he called all those county officials that are affected, but it became better. The whole, the 12 Mount Kenya counties heads all decided to come to Kiambu at Ruiro Stadium whereby we discussed all issues that are affecting this industry, including those Cattails that have been able to penetrate the government. Everybody was included. Everybody was included, the 12, from the 12 counties that are affected. Yeah, of which five are the ones that are adversely affected. They came and the membership decided to conduct an election so that we can have representatives who can go to government and be there to work with government because we are not opposing the implementation of the BRT system. All we are saying is that we are the real stakeholders. We are the ones that need to be involved. Those guys that are sitting there in the apex bodies are Cattails. People who don't even own a border border. And don't understand the transportation. Let me tell you, this whole thing you are seeing here in Nairobi, it's a well orchestrated plan. I am even sure that his Excellency Governor Mike Bovissonko, whom I have a lot of respect for. I have gone to him personally when I had problems with some of my bosses and he assisted me. I can tell you he's been misled because there are people, even this pushing of the county parking fee from 300 shillings to 200 shillings which was done in the assembly. I can tell you for a fact those few county assembly members that pushed for that are being used by those Cattails so that they create an artificial crisis in Nairobi. So all these things are planned? Let me finish. The problem we have in Nairobi, in the CBD especially, of high traffic congestion is caused by the high intake of private vehicles. Those that we call personal vehicles or actually vehicles that are coming into the CBD. We've done a survey and we found that out of every 50 vehicles that access the CBD, 50 private vehicles is only one matter. One matter? It beats logic. And sometimes you only have one passenger in one personal vehicle. So most of the time there's only, even in my own private vehicle, the one that I came using, actually I had to, we were two, just me and my driver. And I had to abandon it at Garden City and took a border to town because had I not done that I would have arrived here at 11. So there are other ways to approach the decongestion problem? Yes. Before we delve into the decongestion problem, I'd like to know apart from hosting out these Cattails and the people who are involved in manipulating the system, what is the mandate of the Federation so far? What can we look up to the mandate to do for us as the people who use the public transport? As we are talking now, the Federation already has its leadership elected whereby I'm chairman. There's a border, border, border guy who has taken the deputy chairmanship. We have representation downward from both the sectors. And the problems that we are facing now that we are together, we realized that the border, border and Matatu is one industry. Because where we, as the Matatu people, drop passengers, the border, border take from there. And where the border borders drop, the Matatu stick from there. So we are one industry. Almost most of the border borders are owned by our Matatu drivers. And even some border border riders have Matatus. So we are one industry. And the problem we are facing, especially here in Nairobi, let me tell you a case in an example. In Nairobi, they used the excuse of insecurity to drive out the border borders. But the truth is, the United Border Border Association and the safety, the Border Border Safety Association of Kenya, those two groups had marched and made, even went to the governor's office where they were somehow blocked by most of the officials. But they were able to present a document whereby they told the county government, allow us, have routes. Let us manage our routes. In a suspicious border, border or motorbike that comes into the CBD, we know ourselves. We shall identify that border, border, those that are used by gangs, criminals. We shall identify and we shall work with the National Police Service so that once we identify, we call them, they come and take them. But now, since they're facing out of the border borders from town, the truth is, even, you know, I've come with a border border myself. So how are they faced out if they're still in town? If you go to town, there are a lot of border borders. Fact be told, the border borders that are there belong to most of the county officials and security operators or people. Those border borders pay a fee of 200 shillings to those small, small county officials so that they can be allowed for their border borders to operate in town. Any border border that is not, let me tell you the truth on the ground. Any border border that does not belong to these small, small county officials is always detained. People have been maimed. You are on a border border. And once a border border is detained, I can tell you right now in Nairobi, it has become low, 5,000 shillings. 5,000 shillings. Which is money they don't even make in a day. And if you don't part with the 5,000 shillings, your border border is detained, taken there to the holding facility, where you are charged 2,000 a day for storage. You are taken to court, where you are fined around 10,000 shillings. So if you take one week to get the 10,000, you add 2,000 shillings per day. So you'd rather have 5,000 on your phone just in case you are detained. But while this is happening, there are border borders everywhere. So we can never get the clear picture. Now there comes the insecurity. The insecurity is there because these border borders, because now it's illegal. Even the actual border borders that are operating illegally cannot detain these illegal border borders. Because if you detain yourself, you are also illegally in town. So you and the criminal end up behind the incels. So this is the problem we are facing in the border borders. And in the 14-seater case of being faced out, they are being faced out with the reason. Right now, even a 14-seater, you rarely find it full capacity, having 14 passengers inside. Go to Kencom. All these buses, the ones that go up a hill, where you find there are three-seaters, most of them are 51-seaters. Most of the seats are always unoccupied. So why are you telling us you want to bring a 100-seater bus? Even a 14-seater is being auctioned by auctioneers because the owner has been unable to pay it because of insufficient passengers because almost every Nairobier now owns a private vehicle. So it beats logic. This is a white elephant. All right, I'll get to your point right there. But there's a lot of criticism when it comes to the Matatu industry. And people will say the last 90 years, if we date back to 1930s, we have been paying for our Matatu rides the same exact way for 90 years. So there are claims that the Matatu industry are not incorporating technology as much as they are supposed to if we compare to other developing nations such as Singapore and we have the likes of other countries that are developing or developed countries rather. So how is this new federation going to incorporate technology for ease in transport and at least incorporate the youth when these colleges were studying technological courses? Yes, what I can tell you from that one is that we admit as the owners of the vehicles we dealt so much on making a profit and forgot that... Progress, there needs to be progress. Things like progress. Now that the cartels have stepped on our foot, they've made us be very much awake. We are awake, we are out of slumberland now and as a federation now this is our professional body whereby we shall work with government internally and we shall be able to do all these things that are needed as long as we are working with government. The cartels were there for their own selfish interest to malign their pockets and the last results was them going to Mombasa, sharing buses among themselves whereby they shared five buses, the leaders, those leaders. The company is called the Regional Metropolitan Transport... Yes, the company, I have been on various TV shows giving these... Now I don't even carry, I have the pictures for Hingamu Aura and this group of 18 persons and the two that exited the company and we saw blue what was happening. They were offered the four buses each. This is Honorable Lucy Washuka who is the treasurer of our federation and there is Mr. Kauvin Nyaure who is the Secretary General of our federation. They were both members of Regional Metropolitan Transport Company which has the directorship of one Kimutai, the Matatu Owners Association Chairman, Jimar Ibrahim and Simon Bogua, people like Mount Kenya, something karaoke, all those people and another guy called Gatogo Karagasha, a group of, they were 18. So the two came out and said no. You see the leadership, the ones I've mentioned were being given five buses each out of the 64 buses that are coming and they were bought with Kenyan taxpayers' money so that they can support the face-out of the 14 sitters, support the face-out of the border borders, hence create a market for these high capacity buses. But the question is if these buses were to come and the 14 sitters are there, would they have leverage? What would be the use of having a 100-sitter bus which only has 14 passengers inside? Read this money and I'm requesting government. This money, we have a lot of issues, bad roads, everything. Let this money go to help those people. If it is a matter of decongesting the CBD, I highly recommend that the problem we have in Kenya is lack of enough sufficient packings and if the intake of private vehicles is more than the packings we have in the CBD, why doesn't the government encourage the use of public means? Because these PSVs do not pack in the CBD. What they do is drop, pick and go back. But these private vehicles are packing from 6 to 6. You come from Nakuru, you get nowhere to park. So I'm saying this, even in modern countries, it is quite an expensive affair to have a private vehicle going into the CBD. So why does the government, why would anyone drop the packing fee to 200 shillings We are actually recommending that the packing fee be taken to as high as 1000 Kenyans shillings and you will see the traffic flow. This one, we have a rate of 50 private vehicles to 1 Matatu. It will drop to 25 private vehicles for every 1 Matatu. And I can assure you Nairobi will be a place you can go anytime So that's your solution for decongesting the city? Yes, it is the law of supply and demand. When the supply of any commodity is high, the price is low. Now the supply of the packings is low. The price has to be high. Why don't you go to the Sarai Naevre? Because it's expensive. So it's simple economics. Why are we telling the government to use billions to create a lane for BRTs? To use billions while we know in Kenya right now we have more than 3.6 private vehicles. And these are vehicles that somebody can pack at Kasarani. Use, pay 20 shillings and come into the CBD. Pay 50 shillings, come into the CBD, pay 50 shillings and go back to Kasarani or there at almost the airport area, those ones. We have very big packing bays there, pack there and it will be less costly. And we even save the Kenyan economy. A lot of money. We use almost 5 billion on fuel. The viewers have issues as well. Because they are stakeholders as well in the public transport system. They use the Matatu. Somebody is asking, this person is saying they have been robbed in a Matatu before. And he is not the only person because when he shared his story on Twitter, he had some other people who have had the same experience. So a matter of security is also here at hand. Telling somebody who is driving their own personal vehicle with so many valuables on them to leave their car somewhere and take a Matatu without the assurance of security is quite difficult. So what would you tell us? Let me tell you my take on that. Insecurities everywhere. Even our private vehicles, even here in the CBD, we pack them and we pay packing boys to watch over them. Because if you don't pay those guys, you might find the side mirror is missing. Private vehicles are being hijacked every day. Actually, it's even the hijackers avoid the Matatu. Because there is a lot of traffic. There's a lot of people inside. They prefer the private vehicles. So on Matatu, this is isolated cases. So I believe it's even safer. It's even safer. Even if you want to do a meeting with somebody, you don't think very highly of insecurity-wise. You meet that person in your house or in the hotel. You meet that person in a public place. So the public means is safer. Go to the police and I can assure you most of the hijackings and everything happen on private vehicles. Not in public. So as we come to the end of this, every whistleblower, whistleblowers have something in common. They're always scared for their lives. Are you scared for your life? Let me tell you, brother, if I become scared about my life because of these cartels and some few government officials that wish to make 17 million out of every bus in 64 buses there's a plan for another 900 buses. And I get scared. I assure you dead and Kemathi will be running in his grave. He fought so that this republic, we can be able to have self-rule and be able to be free, have freedom of speech, freedom of expression. Now, if we fear for these things, let me tell you, we will have thrown our country to the dogs. Has we wind up a message from the Federation to the public as the chairman? I would like to thank all the people that are in support of our Federation. I would like to give special thanks to His Excellency Governor Waitito. He did a very nice job bringing us together from various associations. And I would actually like also to reach out to Governor Mike Bovi Sonko so that together we can work for the betterment of this Nairobi. And I'm sure together we can. Actually, that is our slogan. Together we can. Together as the Matatu owners, as the operators, as the passengers as well. Matatu and border-border operators and our passengers. And together we can, even with our government and county government. Thank you very much, Mr. Mushiri, for coming through. We appreciate you so much for what you do into the operators and the passengers as well and your cause and what you believe in. We appreciate you. Thank you very much. I also appreciate you for calling us here so that we can be able to enlighten the Kenyans on what is happening. But right now you can take it to the bank. We are moving places. And we will make sure that we straighten this sector to the benefit of all Kenyans. Thank you. Mr. Mushiri, the Chairman of the Matatu and Border-Border Operators Federation of Kenya right here on Why in the Morning on Entrepreneurship Tuesday. And we are just discussing the future of the public transport and how does it affect you. If you'd like to engage us in a conversation, you can contact us on Y254 on Twitter, Y254 on Instagram and Y254 on Facebook. Hashtag is Why in the Morning, hashtag Entrepreneurship Tuesday. Or you can hit me up directly at It's By Morning, every social media platform. Joy Muchachi is coming up next with another amazing interview, so don't go nowhere.