Rant

The Dettol Heart Run is being held today and caused some traffic jams around Nairobi West. The traffic was not as bad as the Stanchart Nairobi marathon late last year, but still many cars drove though the shopping area to get away from the long queue on Langata Road.

I was walking on the dusty sidewalk passing frustrated drivers, when a horn blew behind me and I jumped out of the way just as a huge 4 X 4, drove past on the sidewalk, blowing dust, with the driver yakking on his phone.

I recognized the car, a Nissan Patrol GK A257E, and the driver, a short balding, bespectacled, Church man I believe, who’s one of the constitution commissioners who fought Yash Pal Ghai at the conference last year.

His driving habits were bad enough, driving on the wrong side of the road, up the sidewalk, using a cell phone are typical matatu driver habits - but he was driving one of the huge GK trucks that were controversially issued to Constitution Commissioners (and yet the Bomas constitutional conference ended almost a year ago)

Commissioners are not doing any work and yet they still have these gas-guzzling monster trucks fueled and insured by taxpayers to use for a personal Saturday morning drive. I don’t think this driver has to work about filling out a vehicle work sheet that all government drivers must fill out to record each journey – if he does, he’ll probably use it to claim a mileage allowance.

How long will this go on? According to the Constitution Act, commissioners will get paid (and drive Nissan monster trucks) until, a new constitution is enacted.