Believe it or not, ABC Bank Group is headed by none other than former Kenya Rugby Union Chairman Richard Omwela, who is a lawyer by profession. His face is used to obscure corruption and mismanagement in the companies he chairs, because of his reputation and ability to bribe journalists.
You may think it’s a movie, but the CEO of ABC Bank Group Shamaz Savani has appointed his wife as the CEO of their subsidiary ABC Insurance Brokers Kenya Limited. This is against all known workers codes of ethics and employment guidelines and presents a glaring conflict of interest.
Shamaz Savani’s wife rarely comes to the office and in 2019, she has only been to the office three (3) times, leaving the subsidiary under the hands of an incompetent lady called Joan.
Because Joan covers up for her boss’s incompetence, she operates with impunity.
ABC Bank has been in the news for various anomalies including money-laundering and links to terrorism.
To see the group CEO appoint his own wife to head a subsidiary in the same company which has both local and international shareholding and is not a family business, is the biggest scam of the century.
Today following pressure exerted by Cyprian Nyakundi, Savani’s wife has emerged out of the blues and is currently wiping out incriminating evidence of malpractice from her computer with the help of Joan.
You will notice that there is no photo of her online and Shamaz is the one who attends events of the subsidiary, to shield her from possible scrutiny.
What is disheartening is why the Chairman Richard Omwela who masquerades as a polished image of corporate accountability, is being used to sanitize such gross malpractices. Nepotism in such a glaring manner is not only disgusting, but extremely unethical.
To begin with, both Savani’s wife and Joan should be interdicted pending investigations into their activities and running the subsidiary like their personal property. Savani himself should be investigated over these nepotism claims and suspended with immediate effect.
Or else we will know that Richard Omwela is also complicit in the corporate malaise manifesting at ABC Group.
