Urban transport in Nairobi, which had been chaotic, was reined in by a strong Minister for Transport in 2004 through a legal notice no 161 of October 2003. Unfortunately, the changes were not well institutionalised. As soon as the Minister was replaced by another who was less enthusiastic about enforcement of the rules, the matatu sector began to slip back into its old ways. By 2009, the behaviour of the matatu operators had regressed to the period prior to the ministerial intervention.
Despite this experience, little is known about the internal organisation and external linkages of matatu businesses; the investment, market, or service-delivery strategies used by these firms; and the positions of individual firms on specific regulations. It is, however, evident that matatu businesses differ with regard to key variables such as owner characteristics, age and history of the business, forms of internal organisation, linkages with other actors, amount and type of capital investment, type of vehicle ownership and current route assignment. Businesses also vary in the number and types of external linkages that they form with other actors within and outside their own sector of operation.
Government regulation necessarily places some limits on firms’ strategic options. The question to be investigated, therefore, is: To what extent do firms with different strategies respond differently to actual or proposed regulations, and what are the implications for these differences for government’s ability to implement change? The research is essentially exploratory, seeking to uncover through detailed case studies the variation in matatu business operations and linkages, and to investigate the relationship between different business approaches and enterprises’ responses to regulation of the transport sector.
Project leader: A/Prof Dorothy McCormick
Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi
