Kenya Railways Staff Retirement Benefits Scheme (KRSRBS) was established in 2006 to safeguard the interests of over 10,000 pensioners, and has assets estimated to be worth more than Sh20 billion, most of it in form of prime land parcels around the country, especially in Nairobi and Mombasa.
The new developments come as the DCI investigates the chairman of the Kenya Railway Corporation (KRC) board, Mr Michael Waweru, for possible conflict of interest arising out of his chairmanship of Zamara Group (formerly known as Alexander Forbes).
A dispute has broken out at the giant Kenya Railways Staff Retirement Benefits Scheme (KRSRBS) over contested payments totalling more than Sh21 million made by their former pension administrators just as their term was ending nearly three weeks ago.
Two weeks ago, on August 9, 2019, Mr James Kariuki Kanyeki and Mr Henry Wamukota Toili, two newly elected trustees of the pension scheme, wrote to the Director of Criminal Investigations, Mr George Kinoti, to investigate the circumstances under which the money was paid.
WITHDRAWALS
“We, the new board of trustee members…kindly petition your office to conduct an investigation into activities of the outgoing corporate trustees at the KRSRBS whose tenure of office ended on July 31, 2019,” the letter said.
It added: “By the powers conferred upon us through the deed of appointments that takes effect from August 1, 2019, we have discovered that the former corporate trustee officials made unauthorised withdrawals from two separate bank accounts without following due process.”
The authors of the letter further claimed that the withdrawal was done outside the term of Corporate and Pension Trust Services Limited (CPTSL), which has been managing the pension scheme since July 2012 until the end of July this year.
However, Anthony Kilavi, the chief executive of Zamara Group, which wholly owns the Corporate and Pension, said the claims by the new trustees of the pension scheme are “malicious”.
“This money is our monthly retainer, which is Sh1.25 million per month according to the contract, but which we had not collected for nearly two years,” he said. He said while they have not been summoned to appear before DCI, he was aware of the letter of complaint against them.
Mr Kilavi went on: “The fee referenced was paid procedurally and in accordance with a signed agreement. The authors of the […]
