The activists blamed Mr.
Koech of misleading the bank’s Managing
Director & CEO, Mr. Wilfred Musau and the board on a number of issues
while bragging of his close connections to The Treasury CS
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| NBK CEO, Mr. Wilfred Musau |
A civil society group based in Nairobi
has called for the stepping aside and disbandment of the National Bank of Kenya
management team over the planned sale of the bank to Kenya Commercial Bank
(KCB).
Addressing members of the
press at a Nairobi hotel last Friday, June 07 through its representatives
Livingstone Ngugi, Grace Kamau and Obadiah Langa`t, Concerned Citizens Alliance
particularly called for the stepping aside of the bank`s Director of Corporate banking,
Reuben Koech whom they said had mismanaged his docket and plunged the bank into
losses due to bad corporate loans.
They also blamed him of
allegedly receiving kickbacks, ethicizing the bank`s corporate department and
continuously using threat to staff below him who do not play to his fraudulent
tricks.
 |
Concerned
Citizens Alliance members address the press at a Nairobi hotel, regarding
the sale of NBK to KCB.
|
The activists also blamed Mr.
Koech of misleading the bank’s Managing
Director & CEO, Mr. Wilfred Musau and the board on a number of issues
while bragging of his close connections to Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry
Rotich and and some officials at the Deputy President William Ruto’s office.
``We are calling for the
resignation of Koech together with the NBK management within 7 days from now or
else we hold a major protest and camp at the bank’s headquarters where we will
forcefully remove them from the office,``Ngugi said during the conference.
They also called on the
DCI boss George Kinoti to investigate senior managers at the bank who caused
the bank to make huge losses.
Recently the CBK Governor
Patrick Njoroge warned that the only way of saving the National Bank of
Kenya (NBK) from collapse was to be taken over by rival KCB Group in the
proposed merger of the two lenders.
Dr Njoroge said this while
appearing before the Parliamentary Finance and National Planning Committee. He said
that failure to rescue the struggling bank would be disastrous to its 650,000
customers as well as the shareholders at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).
NBK’s core-capital
position has deteriorated from Sh10 billion in 2016 to Sh2 billion as at March
this year, reflecting an 80 percent drop. Dr Njoroge linked the poor
performance to mismanagement, political interference and a poor business model.
The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) and the government, through the National Treasury, are the principal shareholders of NBK with 48 percent and 23 percent stakes respectively.
NBK’s full-year earnings
in 2018 stood at Sh7 million from the Sh410.78 million posted in 2017. Net
earnings in the first quarter of 2019 jumped to Sh106.33 million from a loss of
Sh278.54 million over the same period last year.
Loans and advances to
customers dropped by Sh5.22 billion or 10 percent to Sh45 billion in the first
quarter compared to last year’s Sh51.14 billion.
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