Former accountant mints millions emptying toilets

Charles Murithi resigned two years ago to fully concentrate in his business of waste disposal. [PHOTO: FILEX MURIITHI/STANDARD]

BY FILEX MURIITHI

EMBU COUNTY: Many people envy white-collar jobs. And so was the case with one Charles Murithi who envied the accountancy profession way from his high school days.

Years into his career at St Mary’s Goretti Girls High School, Embu, Mr Murithi developed a different passion; totally unrelated to his childhood dream.   

The idea to abandon an accountancy job and venture into a ‘dirty’ field may have seemed odd to his friends and family. 

Murithi, 39, now the director and founder of Smart and Sure Services Company says many people found it anomalous when he decided to leave his accountancy job and start ‘unblocking and emptying’ sewerage lines, septic and pit latrines.

Murithi’s cleaning company has distributed agents to more than fifteen counties across the country.

Despite the many people he has employed, Murithi does not stay-put at the company’s head office in Runyenjes, Embu County waiting for the work to be done. Instead, he goes to the field together with his employees and does what they do.

“Being a professional accountant does not mean I stay here and wait for them to work then I pay them. I also enter into the ‘packed’ latrines and empty them. We have agents in Embu (Runyenjes), Busia, Siaya, Kakamega, Kirinyaga, Murang’a, Tharaka-Nithi, Bungoma, Bomet, Uasin Gishu, Laikipia, Nakuru and Kiambu counties amid others,” he tells The Standard.

He recalls his decision to abandon his office career at such an early age. “Over the years I stayed in the school, I understood that the major challenge that faced many boarding schools is sanitation,” he says adding: “One day in the year 2010, some people came to our school and asked to extract waste from the pit latrines. I wondered how they would do it but when they justified themselves, the principal offered them an opportunity.”

PERFECT WORK

Murithi says they did the work so perfectly that they left the toilets clean and fresh.

However, one man among the team that did the job, said to be an expert, was unhappy with what he was paid.

“It was unfortunate their boss, a police officer, did not pay them as they had agreed and the matter was brought to the office. After some days, Wilson Maina (the expert), came back to me and requested we partner,” he explains.

Murithi says he accepted the offer and they agreed that he would source for clients as Mr Maina did the work for some time.

“Maina believed I was in a place to get as many clients as possible taking into account that I was able to link-up with many school heads since I had worked in a school environment for many years,” says Murithi. “Unfortunately, we did not exchange contacts and Maina returned to his home in Thika, Kiambu County,” he says adding that he was forced to ask for contacts from Maina’s former boss, the police officer.

MEAN BOSS

“Instead of giving me the contacts, the police officer contacted him personally. However, he was forced by circumstances to give the contacts after he was transferred to Coast Province,” he adds.

In February of 2010, Murithi and his colleague sought work at a secondary school in Chuka municipality, Tharaka-Nithi County. The school’s principal dismissed them after they told her what they wanted.

“We however, met with her in July 2010, at a church function in Chuka town. When she realised I was familiar, she requested to talk to me and confessed that she had actually dismissed us.  She requested we do the job in the first days of the December holiday,” says Murithi.

He adds: “Satisfied with our work, she started getting us customers from the county. Our potential clients are private hostels patronised by Chuka University students and secondary schools,” Murithi explains.

Murithi who officially resigned from formal employment in 2012 says his services cost Sh50 per cubic feet. The charges also vary depending on places of waste disposal.

“We buy different types of chemicals to treat the waste before we extract,” he says. The chemicals are used to treat the gases in the latrines.