Mutuma Mathiu: The government is wasting Tax payers money on huge vehicles

Managing Editor of the Daily Nation Mutuma Mathiu  took a walk through the city this week down Parliament Road into Kenyatta International Convention Centre, through the government district on Harambee Avenue and came to a painful realization.

With vast experience in writing and editing, he has written an opinion article in the Daily Nation exposing the luxurious lifestyle of our politicians on the roads.

“I have never seen so many gas-guzzling juggernauts in my life. Every person in this government, it appears, drives a Toyota Land Cruiser V8,” he mentions.

Toyota land cruiser v8

Ten years ago, then-Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta reckoned he could save Sh 2 billion in fuel and maintenance by getting rid of gas guzzlers.

Mathiu relates walking down Parliament Road’s new parking between the road and the main parliament  building as inspecting a guard of honor, mounted by Japanese junks.

He wonders how much we are spending on them today added to the fact that the elite are evacuating tax cash and corruptly retaining portions of foreign loans by the shipload. There is all of Sh 15 trillion in secret accounts abroad.

“And why are government officials driving off-road vehicles, best suited to the Arabian Desert, to the office?I thought there was a government policy regulating the size of engines for vehicles issued to Cabinet secretaries and other top government officials?,” Mutuma questions.

The policy, in 2009, was to withdraw all vehicles with an engine bigger than 1,800 cc and the government abandoned or sold for a song countless vehicles, at great cost to the taxpayer.

Mathiu says if you have to beg, borrow and steal to buy something, you can’t afford it.And you can’t have everything you desire; you have to delay or cancel gratification, that’s what ‘adulting’ is all about.

“The government is taxing us to within an inch of our lives, then wasting those funds on conspicuous consumption, for heaven’s sake,” he laments.

Chief Justice Maraga’s new beast

He is as crazy about cars as the next man and would love to drive an expensive car, a Rolls-Royce. He would also love to own his father’s dream car (he believed a real African terrorist should drive nothing less than a long wheel base Range Rover, a final insult to the Imperialist). As a matter of fact, Mutuma looks at expensive cars all the time. His crush of the moment is the five- litre 2018 Range Rover, Fiji white with a red leather interior.

The legroom, rear screens, panoramic sunroof he compares to driving to work in an SQ with a balcony. But If he went to the Nation Sacco, refreshed his mortgage and called a shy lock or two, he probably might raise the Sh 20-odd million that it would cost to put this Range Rover on the road.

 Mathiu expresses that its is always with a flash of irritation that he agrees to be pushed out of the road by minor government officials who are jokers in their juggernauts with a siren and a hand holding a walkie-talkie sticking out of the window.

‘I followed a particularly obnoxious juggernaut that bullied us and drove the wrong way round Globe Cinema Roundabout. In town, a fashionably dressed lady got out. She appeared late either for a hair appointment or shopping. I was aghast.

Respect the people and their money and you will do well.

I am very happy to make way for the President, Deputy President, Raila Odinga, the First Lady, Mrs Odinga, the Chief Justice, the Chief of Defence Forces, the Inspector-General of Police, Mama Ngina Kenyatta and countless other Kenyans who deserve, and have earned, our respect,” he says as he concludes

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