In 2015, Kenya Railways pensioners called for an audit on the scheme’s accounts and tracking of an estimated Sh3.5 billion believed to have been lost through fraud.
The earlier team managing the assets was disbanded in 2012 over the fraud allegations and a corporate trustee, Corporate & Pension Trust Services Limited — a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alexander Forbes, was then put in place.
However, new details emerging from investigators allege that the chairman of the Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) board Mr Michael Waweru could be directly linked to Alexander Forbes and is, therefore, being investigated for possible conflict of interest.
Multiple sources at the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) say that Mr Waweru is also being investigated for possible conflict of interest arising out of his chairmanship of Zamara Ltd (formerly known as Alexander Forbes) which manages KRC’s pension scheme.
Sources who spoke to the newsrooms in confidence since the matter is still under probe believe there is suspicion of conflict of interest since Mr Waweru chairs the board meetings of the two institutions, yet they are doing business together.
Furthermore, they said they are looking into some questionable payment demands made by Zamara Ltd on KRC as well as the manner in which some of KRC’s pension scheme properties were offloaded by the pension manager.
The Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA) scheme was fraught with corruption, breach of trust, abuse of office, fraudulent disposal of assets and other malpractices when prime properties at the Upper Hill area of Nairobi were set to be sold at Sh262 million per acre yet the current going price is in the range of Sh500 million.
Mr Waweru confirmed that he has been the chairman of Zamara Ltd long before he was appointed to chair the KRC board in June last year. “I have always disclosed my conflicts in meetings and right now Zamara’s contract has expired,” he said.
An accomplished businessman, Mr Waweru served as the Commissioner-General of the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) from 2003 to 2012. He is a former private auditor of retired President Mwai Kibaki.
It was during his term at the helm of KRA when Mr Waweru popularised the use of container freight stations (CFSs). His alleged interest in one of the biggest CFS in the country is also under scrutiny by the DCI detectives.
The sleuths want to establish whether he has misused his position to unduly influence the allocation of container cargo through the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) to the Mombasa-based CFS.
Of interest too to the investigators is how the freight company was allocated 20 acres of KRC land which is located next to the Nairobi Freight Terminal.
Apart from Mr Waweru, others to be questioned in the coming days in relation to the investigations are senior managers of KRC, the CFS and pension scheme managers.
Sources also say that Mr Waweru engineered a board resolution to sack the acting MD Mr Mainga three weeks ago over alleged non-performance, a decision that they walked back on this week.
On Friday, Transport and Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary James Macharia met the board over the attempt to sack Mr Mainga and board members are said to have abandoned the embattled chairman over the decision.