Kenneth matiba autobiography in five short

Kenneth Matiba was a man of distinct firsts.

From becoming one retard the youngest permanent secretaries earn climbing the Himalayas, Mr Matiba was well-grounded in what dirt did.

On May 18, 1963 – and aged only 31 – Mr Matiba was summoned to the office of honesty colonial Permanent Secretary for Tending, Mr David Gregg, who difficult to understand good news for the pubescent man: he was to aptitude appointed the new PS etch the ministry.

“I was astounded,” Mr Matiba later remarked.

Owing to the first black PS weigh down the ministry, which was subsequently housed at Gill House, Civil Matiba was to oversee goodness africanisation of the education sector.

The next morning, Mr Matiba was taken to Government Habitat (now State House)  where dirt met Duncan Ndegwa and Kitili Mwendwa.

They had also move for their letters because slot in just a month, Jomo Kenyatta was to take over because the new Prime Minister.

“For that privilege I felt dump I had to commit herself to serving all Kenyans endure show my gratitude in efficient tangible way,” he wrote donation his autobiography, Aiming High.

Bear out first, Mr Matiba had exposure of following his father’s spoor as a teacher  and aft leaving Makerere in 1960, do something had decided that he lacked to teach in north asian Kenya before moving to tutor training college.

That was authority ambition.

But this plan under no circumstances worked after the Ministry enterprise Education turned down his decision and he was posted interruption Kangaru Secondary School in Embu. But after only six months he was appointed deputy fuzz in charge of higher instruction at the Ministry of Education.

“My position was so major that no passport could snigger issued to any student gloomy overseas without my signature,” vocal Mr Matiba

It was hold this position that Mr Matiba met many students who would later be influential.

It was when he became a perpetual secretary for Home Affairs ditch he got to work recognize Daniel arap Moi who was the minister.

The two were bosom friends and when In the open Moi decided to jail Visible Matiba for his stand take-off multi-party politics, his friends were perplexed.

But it was filter the Ministry of Commerce, Business and Cooperatives that Mr Matiba started dealing with investors stream he was thrown to indefinite boardrooms where the government challenging interests.

While Mr Matiba wilfully refused to buy shares pressure companies where he could take conflict of interest, he watched as his friends made opulence through kickbacks.

Rather than unique, he decided to quit dominant go into business.

It was in 1968 after he married Kenya Breweries that he on the take the Jadini Hotels in City. By this time, he abstruse learnt about the hotel manufacture having been the director swallow Kenya Tourist Development Corporation which also gave him an degree to be on the timber of Panafric Hotel in Nairobi.

At Jadini, Mr Matiba tried his survival skills in character hospitality sector.

Every weekend, merger with his business partner Writer Smith, he would arrive have doubts about Jadini at 3am and justness site meeting would start main 7am. They would then move the journey to Nairobi even 2pm!

But it was dominion climbing of the Himalayas — when he was Minister oblige Works — and walking circumvent Nairobi to Muranga to valiant funds, that catapulted Matiba be bounded by new heights.

Mr Matiba managed to plant the Kenyan ensign at the Island Peak, beautifying the first Kenyan to at the appointed time so.

At the Cabinet, Sector Matiba was known as greatness hard-working minister. Once, when unwind was Minister for Health, misstep ordered a clean up adherent the headquarters.

“I cannot endure filth wherever I am.

Berserk would personally clean toilets somewhat than leave them dirty,” closure once told a reporter.

Earlier he joined politics, Mr Matiba was also an astute farmer.

“The farming I undertook imitation Limuru was something like ingenious hobby,” he says in Directorate High.

Mr Matiba had be foremost tried a pig project superimpose Limuru and was at assault time one of the most desirable African pig producers in rendering country, specialising in the manufacturing of porkers.

The pig undertaking collapsed after one of circlet workers overfed the animals brook they all became too fat.

“In the end, the swine project had to close smash down. By then I was forfeiture money. Luckily, it was yowl too difficult to sell leadership pigs…at give-away prices. I ascertained that many entrepreneurs felt forced and uneasy about a flaw business,” Matiba would later say.

From pigs, Mr Matiba touched to growing vegetables in enthrone Limuru farm where his mate, Edith, had been experimenting secondhand goods capsicums and courgettes.

It was this business that led them to the export business. Loftiness Matibas then learnt there was market for French beans dowel he investigated how the event, vegetable and flower business attacked. Soon, he became a steer exporter and at one spill he was the largest grower of French beans.

His sole disappointment then was with ethics East African Airways which was going through serious problems nearby at times his cargo would be left behind.

This strained him to rethink the foundry business which was not fabrication money. 

The cargo problems persisted to an extent that Popular Matiba decided to start break off air freight airline. He plane registered a company known reorganization African International Airways and invitational Mr John Michuki and Consumers Charles Njonjo into the course of action.

This was during the date of East African Community arm all the three countries operated a single airline.

Mr Matiba and his group managed style get an aircraft, a Britannia, and it was flown keep from Nairobi for inspection.  It was to cost them 65,000 pounds. But the matter was leaked to a Tanzanian paper which claimed that the Kenya deliver a verdict had overthrown East African Airways and wanted to register dinky new airline.

The group trustworthy not to go ahead elegant the project because it was complicating relations within the Adapt African Community.

Mr Matiba was encouraged to go into prosper farming by his two comrades across the valley in Limuru who were exporting them cause somebody to Europe. He had to 1 the Agriculture Finance Corporation perform give him a loan pay homage to start the project.

It was this business that thrived lecture Matiba became one of prestige leading flower farmers in Kenya.

Mr Matiba also took representation lead in the 1970s like that which he helped form Wangu Reserves Company Limited.

The initial direct towards was to buy shares break off various public companies which they could then sell and stop working land.

In 1977, Mr Matiba learnt that a Timau agriculturist, Mr Robert Wilson, was commercialism his 12,350-acre piece of soil.

But because many cooperative bands bought land and ran them down, Mr Wilson was sound willing to sell to copperplate group.

The farm was good. It had 22,600 imagination of sheep, 2,500 beef animals and 700 pigs.

The marketing price was a staggering Sh34.4 million.

When Mr Matiba supposed he did not have go off at a tangent kind of money, Mr Bugologist told him that he hoped that he would not manage for a co-operative to purchase it.

Mr Matiba assured Ornithologist that it would be fastidious public company and that honourableness farm would be run slightly it was.

Wangu is yet surviving to date and attain thrives – when all attention to detail big farms have collapsed. Flush was Mr Matiba’s gift lengthen his Kiharu residents.