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By:
JOHN KAMAU | |||||||||
| Posted:
Dec,25-2015 10:32:16
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Coffee baron Pithon Mwangi's gold-plated coffin impressed those who attended his funeral in the sleepy Kambirwa Village in what was then Murang’a District.
The Coffee Board, where he had served as the chairman for a long time, wanted to give him a farewell befitting his stature in the industry.
For that, the board imported a £32,000 bronze casket from the United Kingdom, hoping it would help fill that crater-size hole he had left in the coffee landscape.
At today's exchange rate, the coffin would be valued at about Sh4.9 million.
"We ordered the casket from Britain and it was to last over 100 years," says a former director privy to the purchase.
His funeral service was held on Wednesday, March 6, 1996, at St James Cathedral in Murang'a Town, and was attended by hundreds of mourners from Kangema Constituency where he hailed from, and from Makuyu, his adopted home.
Most of the front seats in the church had been reserved for the top honchos in the coffee industry. They wanted Mwangi's funeral to be different.
SAD AND UNFORTUNATE END
However, two days after the funeral on the night of Friday, March 7, more than 10 thugs armed with axes, shovels and pangas stormed the well-secured compound.
Only Mwangi's widow, Ms Tabitha Waigwe, their son and a few relatives were at the newly built home when the gang struck.
The men were only interested in two things: The gold-plated casket in which Mwangi lay in repose and the money that mourners had given his widow.
They eventually dug up the coffin and took off with the Sh110,000 that well-wishers had given the widow.
The thugs also attempted to burn down the newly built house, a sad end for a man that the coffee industry had treated with immense respect when he was alive.
The local police boss at the time, Mr Joseph Naragwe, later described the incident as "very sad and unfortunate".
Several suspects were arrested and charged with robbery with violence.
In life, Mwangi had sat at the pinnacle of the Coffee Board, a ruthless state corporation, which sold farmers' coffee and kept the cash--or paid up only when prodded.
Debts accumulated under Mwangi's watch would later weigh down the giant Kenya Planters Co-operative Union to a point where it was pushed into receivership.
A tall, well-built man, Mwangi arrived at the Coffee Board in 1988, thanks to his ingenuity in building the giant Murang'a Farmers Co-operative Union.
The union owned a big stake in Co-op Bank and had a reputation as one of the best managed in the country, with prime buildings in Thika and Murang'a towns.
It also owned a 60-acre piece of land on the Thika-Murang'a road and had a licence to import copper fungicides and fertilisers for the coffee industry.
STRATEGIC THINKER
The profits were always to shareholders.
In fact, the union was one of the first to start a Savings and Credit Co-operative (Sacco) in 1966.
It also operated an animal feeds plant in Thika Town, besides running mobile bank vans across Murang'a District.
Mwangi had hired a professional general manager at the union, a man called Stanley Muchiri.
It was because of their stake at Co-operative Bank that Mr Muchiri found his way to the boards of the bank, KPCU and the Coffee Board.
Today, Mr Muchiri is the chairman of the Co-op Bank and the KPCU's new rival, the Kenya Co-operative Coffee Exporters Ltd.
Mwangi's election to the Coffee Board was a strategic decision by the Murang'a coffee growers, who hoped that he would manage the industry using his previous experience at the union.
"He was a very quiet man and never liked quarrels. His problem was that he was a 'yes sir' kind of person. The likes of Abraham Mwangi (KPCU chairman and Coffee Board director) took advantage of him," says a director, who worked with him.
Despite this, Mwangi knew how to play politics.Shortly after he was elected and named chairman by then Agriculture minister Elijah Mwangale, Mwangi arranged to visit President Daniel arap Moi in State House, Nairobi.
He withdrew Sh250,000 from the farmers' proceeds and gave it to the then President: Sh100,000 for a project of Mr Moi's own choice and Sh150,000 for the University Research Fund.
The next day, he was on the front page of the Nation. The photograph showed him smiling coyly, a ruling party Kanu lapel pin on his jacket.
Incidentally, Mwangi was at the helm of the Coffee Board when the industry started going through the rough patches of liberalisation and the collapse of the International Coffee Agreement.
Always under pressure from Kanu mandarins, Mwangi easily gave away the board's cash. It was during his reign that the board was used to bring down the KPCU.
From 1992, the Coffee Board's opaque financial dealings were equalled by none. It operated 32 accounts in 12 banks and never presented audited accounts to Parliament for 10 years.
Those who hated Mwangi called him Python, a play on his baptismal name, which suggested that he had strangled the coffee industry.
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