Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko on Sunday evening cancelled licences for all Chandarana Foodplus supermarkets following racism claims
Through a text message to newsrooms, Governor Sonko said that he had ordered his county officers to ensure that all Chandarana Foodplud Supermarkets has been shutdown starting Monday 30th July.
The Supermarket was blamed a new employee in their marketing department for a recently leaked racially sensitive email.
According to Rima Patel the marketing Specialist for Chandarana said We are delighted to inform you that our supermarket chain, would like to give you free vouchers to winner/raffles/best performer/runners-up candidate in upcoming events. As we are now focusing on white people to attract our supermarkets.”
The email as seen was perceived to have been targeting a certain race which implied to be the white people a move that elicited anger from Kenyans on social media with most of them vowing not to visit any of the supermarket’s outlets again.
Chandarana Supermarket has, however, issued an apology for the perceived racially insensitive email, terming it as an error committed by “one of our very new and recent hires in the marketing department.”
The further claimed that,“Her lack of proficiency in the English language is an easy way to justify this horrendous error.”
The supermarket chain further stated that it would take necessary steps to make sure the error never happens again.
“The immense magnitude of this error undoubtedly comes to us as a severe embarrassment and all the apologies in the world cannot make such a wrong a right again,” said the supermarket.
Please accept our sincere apology for a recent email sent to you pic.twitter.com/NPch9dboM9
— Chandarana Foodplus (@ChandaranaSuper) July 28, 2018
The apology has drawn even more criticism, with a section of online users faulting the retail chain for hiring a non-Kenyan employee with poor communication skills.
However as Kenyans on Twitter they were not so pleased even after the apology they took to twitter to rant again over the issue.
Here are some of the Kenyans reactions on Social Media.
So you want us to buy from you but you cannot hire Kenyans in professional areas of your supermarket?
— #GainWithXtianDela (@OwenHinga) July 28, 2018
I experienced discrimination at Chandarana ABC when the cashier skipped me to serve a white man behind me. I left without shopping
— Hellen Ngareh (@HNgareh) July 29, 2018
The fact that your so called new hire cannot communicate in English is a problem in itself. You could not employ a competent Kenyan marketing professional with good communication skills? We have got plenty of those.
— Wambui Munene (@WambuiMunene31) July 28, 2018
What a poor excuse. Let’s start by asking if they’re paying the intern at all. This could be a cheap is expensive situation.
I like shopping at Chandarana but right now I’m giving them the side eye.— Warũgũrũ Mũchĩra (@WaruguruMuchira) July 28, 2018
These Indians from India are very rude, full of pride, arrogant and undermine blacks in their own country, I have never understood why we need them in Kenya, when we have a big population of jobless graduates, govt should be serious about this Indians.@ImmigrationDept
— Hillary Ngasura (@HillaryNgasura) July 29, 2018
You need not punish the new marketing recruit. She obviously picked her cue from someone or persons senior to her and must be a true and factual reflection of what you truly stand for.
— Bernard Arnold (@BernardArnold12) July 28, 2018
Chandarana Food Plus Supermarkets, whose official name is Chandarana Food Plus Supermarkets Limited is a wholly Kenyan, privately held company. As of February 2018, the detailed shareholding in the company stock in not widely, publicly known.
The chain has about 15 branches around the country.