Two years ago, a team charged with the seemingly impossible task of cleaning up the Nairobi River faced a real dilemma of sewage continually flowing into the murky stream in spite of their effort to stop it.
The filth would flow all the way from Museum Hill to Racecourse estate in the eastern side of the City without a sign that it would ever stop.
Former Nairobi Town Clerk John Gakuo was the man Environment minister John Michuki ,who died on Tuesday, had charged with the task of cleaning up the mess.
Even for Mr Gakuo, who had cultivated the image of a no nonsense administrator in Nairobi, the sewage presented a Herculean task whose solution was not forthcoming.
Mr Gakuo and his team complied with the order and blocked the giant pipes causing a mighty uproar in the city as foul-smelling raw sewage flooded roads, business premises and residential estates.
That action forced the Nairobi Water & Sewerage Company to swiftly redirect the sewage to the right channels moving the clean-up of Nairobi River to the next level.
That is what sums up the character of Mr Michuki, one of Kenya’s most resolute public servants who was loved and reviled by the citizens he served in almost equal measure.
Mr Michuki leaves behind a character of determination, forthrightness and firmness that saw him stand by his words and actions however controversial.
“Once he set his mind on something he believed it was impossible to fail,” said Mr Gakuo who worked with Mr Michuki for many years.
Earlier, in March 2004 while he served as Transport minister, Mr Michuki had captured the imagination of Kenyans when he single-handedly formulated and implemented new regulations that returned sanity to the chaotic public transport sector.
The regulations required public service vehicles to install speed governors, employees to wear uniforms, vehicles to operate only on specific routes and outlawed standing passengers.
Initially, the PSV operators reacted to the so-called Michuki rules with skepticism and outright hostility.
But for Mr Michuki, rules had been made and not even a strike by the operators would make him change his mind. With popular public support, it took Mr Michuki only a couple of months to realise full compliance and the results were there for all to see.
The Association of Kenya Insurers (AKI) estimates that accidents involving PSV fell by 25 (or 50 going by State figures) per cent at the time, for the very first time allowing the underwriters to cut premiums by 15 per cent.
From Transport Mr Michuki moved over to the Provincial Administration and Internal Security docket where the next problem group—the Mungiki—would feel the heat of his unusual determination.
At Mr Michuki’s order, the police violently confronted the members of the outlawed group that had stepped up its brutal activities in Nairobi and Central Kenya, bringing to pass the minister’s self-fulfilling prophecy that the public should brace for a flurry of funerals. As it was with the uproar that followed the 2007 police raid of Standard Group, which he is known to have ordered, Mr Michuki, who died at the Aga Khan Hospital, remained unrepentant.
It was during the raid which cost the then CID head John Kamau his job that he made the now infamous quote: “If you rattle a snake, you should prepare to be bitten.”
It surprised many that Mr Michuki did not do what a typical Kenyan public servant would do given the public outrage—categorically denying responsibility and knowledge of the raid.
Perhaps the least acknowledged achievement of Mr Michuki was his reform of the coffee sector under the 1997-2002 Coffee and Tea Parliamentary Group (Cotepa), which he chaired at one time.
Having become Treasury PS in 1965, he would move on to become the executive chairman of what is today KCB Group for nine years from 1970—after State took 100 per cent of National & Grindlays Bank—years before it was run down in the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1992, he invested in the landmark Windsor Golf and Country Hotel.
Owned 51 per cent by his family’s Fairview Investments Ltd. He also owned Cargen House on Moi Avenue, Nairobi, where he maintained private offices for years.
While his actions, like crushing overstayed cargo at the Mombasa port when he was acting Finance minister in 2008, might look radical, he was a political and business conservative.
“I don’t know whether M-Pesa will end up well. I want guidance from Central Bank over the concerns of M-Pesa money transfer system,” he said on the service started in March 2007 by Safaricom, which turned out to be roaring success. Mr Gakuo nevertheless thinks there was another side to Mr Michuki: “He was a man of calculated risks.”
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