Tag: Vivienne Yeda Apopo

THE HANDSHAKE THAT BECAME A NOOSE: How Tuju’s Alleged Intimate Access to EADB’s Yeda Apopo Produced a Sh294 Million Deal With No Written Contract, and Why That Trust Destroyed an Empire

There is a category of transaction that does not exist in the formal architecture of development finance. It has no name in the regulatory manuals that govern lending institutions from Kampala to Nairobi, no clause in the standard form agreements that are drafted by international lawyers billing at three hundred dollars an hour, and no mention in the governance frameworks that development banks present to their shareholders at annual general meetings.

And yet it is the category into which, according to testimony that has surfaced across a decade of litigation, the most consequential portion of the loan that destroyed Raphael Tuju’s business empire quietly fell. It is called trust.

In the wreckage of what was once a billion-shilling development, as armed police stand at the gates of Dari Restaurant and receiver managers prepare inventories of assets that Tuju built over three decades, this is the detail that nobody in the mainstream coverage of the EADB-Tuju dispute has examined with sufficient rigour: the second tranche of the 2015 loan facility, a sum variously described in court documents as Sh270 million to Sh294 million, the tranche that was supposed to fund the construction of luxury housing units whose sale would have serviced the entire debt, does not appear to have been governed by the same contractual rigour as the first. And the only credible explanation for why a businessman of Tuju’s sophistication would proceed on that basis lies in the identity of the person who ran the East African Development Bank when the loan was made.

That person was Vivienne Yeda Apopo. She held the title of Director General for sixteen years and nine months, from January 15, 2009, until December 31, 2024, three months before police showed up at Tuju’s gates.

She was, by any measure, one of the most powerful bankers in the East African region during the period when Kenya’s political and business elite were building the empires that they now fight to preserve.

And the question that the courts, operating within the narrow procedural confines of foreign judgment enforcement, have never been required to answer is this: what was the precise nature of the relationship between Vivienne Yeda Apopo and Raphael Tuju, and did that relationship substitute for contractual certainty at the moment when certainty mattered most?

The written contract bound Tuju absolutely. The alleged verbal assurance about the second tranche bound nobody. That asymmetry is the architecture of destruction.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF A CONVENIENT DEAL

To understand what happened, it is necessary to understand what EADB is and who controls it. The bank was established in 1967 under the treaty of the original East African Community and was re-established under its own charter in 1980 after the collapse of that union.

Its founding members were Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Rwanda joined as the fourth Class A member state in 2008. But the bank’s shareholding extends well beyond the four governments.

Class B institutional shareholders include the African Development Bank, the Netherlands Development Finance Company, the German Investment and Development Company, SBIC-Africa Holdings, Standard Chartered Bank in London, Barclays Bank in London, and, critically, the Commercial Bank of Africa.

That last name is not incidental. The Commercial Bank of Africa, known as CBA before its merger with NIC Group to form NCBA in 2019, was effectively the house bank of the Kenyatta family.

The Kenyattas, through an investment vehicle called Enke Investments Limited, controlled 24.91 percent of CBA, making them the single largest private shareholders. President Uhuru Kenyatta’s family was therefore a double shareholder in EADB at the time the Tuju loan was made: once as the Government of Kenya, which holds one of the four sovereign stakes in the bank, and again through CBA’s institutional Class B shareholding.

The former Finance Minister who presided over the period when Yeda Apopo was appointed Director General was none other than Uhuru Kenyatta himself, who held the Treasury portfolio from 2001 to 2005 and had been deeply embedded in the bank’s political oversight architecture when Yeda Apopo rose through its ranks.

Yeda Apopo had been at the EADB since at least 2006, serving as Director of Legal Affairs before being appointed to the top post in January 2009.

By the time Tuju approached the bank in 2015 for funding for his Karen project, she had been Director General for six years.

She sat on the board of the Central Bank of Kenya, had received the African Banker of the Year Award in May 2014, and had been named Business Leader of the Year by the Africa-America Institute in October 2014. She was, in the language of East African business, a woman of consequence.

And she was Kenyan, in a bank that her own staff would formally accuse, in 2016, of favouring Kenya to the disadvantage of its other member states.

A MAN WITH THE PRESIDENT’S EAR

Tuju, in 2015, was not merely a borrower. He was a Cabinet Secretary without portfolio in Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration, a position that placed him in the inner sanctum of executive power.

He was also Secretary-General of the Jubilee Party, the ruling coalition, which made him one of the most politically connected individuals in the country.

He had previously served as Minister for East African Community under President Kibaki, giving him a history of direct engagement with the regional institutions that operated under the East African Community framework, of which the EADB is one.

For a Director General seeking to maintain relevance in Nairobi, to secure the goodwill of the government that was simultaneously a sovereign shareholder and an indirect institutional shareholder through the Kenyatta family’s CBA stake, and to avoid the scrutiny that her own staff were beginning to direct at her management, Tuju was not a difficult case to approve.

He was, by the internal political logic of the institution, the right kind of borrower: powerful, connected, and capable of running interference against the kind of parliamentary and governmental oversight that was already beginning to shadow her tenure.

Staff within EADB had already begun to raise concerns about the manner in which Yeda Apopo was running the institution.

A formal petition, which would become public in 2016 when The East African newspaper obtained it, accused her of approving projects from her home country while sitting on applications from Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

The petition, copied to Kenya’s Treasury, demanded her immediate termination.

It described a director general who frustrated viable projects from other member states while ensuring that Kenyan applications moved smoothly through the system.

The Tuju loan, approved in April 2015, fits precisely that pattern. It was a Kenyan project, brought by a Kenyan political heavyweight, approved by a Kenyan director general, at a bank where Kenya was a double shareholder.

Whether any personal relationship existed between Tuju and Yeda Apopo, as has been speculated in social media posts dating back to at least November 2020 and revived with considerable intensity in March 2026 as the Karen property seizures unfolded, the structural conditions for preferential treatment were more than sufficient on their own.

Kenya was a double shareholder. The borrower was a cabinet minister. The lender was a Kenyan director general whose own staff accused her of running the bank as a Nairobi franchise. The political geometry was perfect.

THE TRANCHE THAT WAS NEVER WRITTEN DOWN

The loan agreement signed on April 10, 2015, between EADB and Dari Limited, Tuju’s company, was, on its face, a commercial document of reasonable sophistication.

It was governed by English law, with disputes to be resolved in London, a choice that would prove catastrophic for Tuju’s defence when enforcement proceedings eventually commenced.

It provided for a facility of $9.3 million, the disbursement of which was secured by charges over Tuju’s Entim Sidai property, his Tamarind Karen development, and the Dari Business Park, as well as personal guarantees from Tuju himself and his three children.

The first tranche, approximately Sh932.7 million, was disbursed on July 29, 2015, and used to purchase the 94-year-old Victorian bungalow built by Scottish missionary Albert Patterson, which would become the centrepiece of the Dari Restaurant and Wellness project.

The second tranche, approximately Sh294 million, was intended for the construction of high-end maisonettes on the property, the sale of which was the mechanism by which the loan was meant to repay itself.

Thirty three-bedroom units on one parcel, eight five-bedroom units on another. The mathematics were straightforward: sell the units, retire the debt.

But the second tranche, according to testimony that David Odongo, then EADB’s Kenya Country Manager, gave under cross-examination during Kenyan court proceedings, was structured differently from the first.

Tuju’s legal team has consistently argued, and Odongo’s testimony appeared to support, that the disbursement of the second tranche was governed not by the four corners of the written facility agreement but by representations made outside it.

The written agreement described conditions for disbursement.

But the understanding of how and when those conditions would be satisfied, and indeed of whether they were conditions at all or merely administrative formalities that would be resolved through the relationship between the parties, appears to have operated on a different plane entirely.

This is the missing link.

The written contract bound Tuju absolutely. The alleged verbal assurance about the second tranche bound nobody. That asymmetry is the architecture of destruction.

When Tuju’s team sought to introduce Odongo’s testimony as new evidence in 2024, seeking a review of the 2020 High Court decision that had adopted the UK judgment against him, the application was dismissed with a ruling that has become one of the most cited sentences in this litigation: the court said it would not permit a collateral attack on a final and valid foreign judgment already recognised and upheld on appeal.

The Supreme Court of Kenya, when Tuju took his case to the apex court, was equally unsparing.

Five justices, including the Deputy Chief Justice, found that the petitioners had not validated their averments with any proof.

The allegations were described as bare and unsubstantiated.

But the courts were not asked to evaluate whether the verbal representations were made. They were asked to evaluate whether those representations, even if made, could override a written contract governed by English law and already reduced to a London judgment. The answer to the second question is no. The first question was never properly examined.

THE GRAVITY OF INSTITUTIONAL ACCESS

To understand why a man of Tuju’s business experience would proceed on the basis of verbal assurances rather than written commitments, one must understand the gravitational pull of proximity to power in the Kenyan institutional environment.

In 2015, Tuju was not dealing with a commercial bank whose loan officers operated within clearly defined matrices of credit authority.

He was dealing with a regional development bank whose Director General had held her position for six years and whose decision-making, according to her own staff, had become increasingly concentrated at the apex of the institution.

The EADB’s governance structure places the Governing Council, comprising the finance ministers of the member states, at the apex, with the board below it and the Director General responsible for day-to-day management.

In practice, development banks of this size and complexity develop what practitioners call executive dominance, a tendency for the Director General’s personal judgement to substitute for collective institutional processes.

The 2016 staff petition against Yeda Apopo described precisely this phenomenon: projects approved by senior management were stopped by the Director General without documented justification, while other projects she favoured moved through the system regardless of what the management recommendation said.

If, in this environment, the Director General indicated to a borrower, through whatever channel, that the second tranche would be forthcoming once the first was deployed and the project had begun to take shape, a borrower operating in the Kenyan political economy would have had every reason to treat that indication as binding.

Not because it was legally binding, but because in Nairobi in 2015, the word of a person of Yeda Apopo’s institutional stature, given to a person of Tuju’s political stature, carried a weight that no written contract needed to replicate.

This is not a defence of Tuju’s financial management.

The loan went into default in the second quarter of 2016, barely a year after disbursement. Only one interest payment was made, in October 2015.

The grace period expired, the demand letters were ignored, and the international arbitration that followed produced a judgment that Kenyan courts have consistently upheld.

Whatever verbal assurances were made, the written obligations were not met.

But the question of why the obligations were not met, why the project that was supposed to generate the cash flow to service the loan never got off the ground, cannot be answered without examining the second tranche.

And the second tranche cannot be examined without confronting the circumstances under which it was structured.

THE OTHER DEALS THAT DIED THE SAME DEATH

The Tuju case is not the only EADB lending relationship during Yeda Apopo’s tenure that followed this pattern.

The 2020 reporting on the dispute by Kahawatungu identified at least three other projects that suffered what it described as the same fate: Quality Health Limited of Tanzania, where funds were allegedly disbursed for purposes other than those approved; the Kwale International Sugar Company, where a Sh2 billion agreement was signed but funds withheld after new conditions were introduced mid-stream; and the Infinity Industrial Park in Kenya, where $10 million was approved and offer letters executed before disbursement was declined following the imposition of new conditions.

The pattern is consistent.

An initial approval, sufficient to secure the borrower’s commitment and, in several cases, the pledging of security.

A subsequent refusal to disburse on the basis of conditions that either were not in the original agreement or were introduced after the borrower had already committed to the project.

The effect, in each case, is to leave the borrower exposed: the security is pledged, the project is underway or anticipated, but the funding that would make the project viable has been withheld.

Whether this pattern was deliberate, systemic, or the product of individual lending decisions that simply went wrong is a question that falls outside the scope of this article.

What it does establish is that the Tuju situation was not anomalous. It was one of several cases in which the gap between what was approved and what was disbursed became the site of the borrower’s destruction.

Yeda Apopo had reduced the bank’s non-performing loan ratio from 26 percent in 2009 to 0.88 percent in 2024. The instrument of that reduction was aggressive recovery. The fuel for that recovery was the gap between approval and disbursement.

THE BANKER WHO LEFT BEFORE THE RECKONING

Vivienne Yeda Apopo retired on December 31, 2024. Three months later, armed police sealed the Dari Business Park.

The timing is not conclusive of anything, but it is suggestive of the manner in which institutional accountability operates in the East African regional architecture.

Her departure was announced with the language of celebration. The EADB described it as the conclusion of an outstanding 17-year career.

Her successor in the interim was Benard Mono, the bank’s head of finance, pending a recruitment process.

The bank she left behind was, by the metrics she had championed, a success: non-performing loans at 0.88 percent, down from 26 percent when she took over in 2009.

That reduction was the signature achievement of her tenure.

It was also, in the view of Tuju and at least three other borrowers, the product of recovery strategies that prioritised the bank’s balance sheet over the borrowers’ ability to complete the projects for which they had borrowed.

She had survived multiple challenges during her tenure. The 2016 staff petition was investigated by Ernst and Young on the board’s recommendation.

Its findings were not made public. In May 2023, then Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u convened a meeting to deliberate on her term, raising questions in Nairobi’s financial circles about whether her position was finally under threat.

She survived that too, remaining in post until the voluntary retirement that the bank characterised as entirely on her own terms.

In November 2022, MP Joseph Makilap of Baringo North had risen in Parliament to table a pointed question: was there not a conflict of interest in the circumstance that the Director General of the bank that had provided the loan to finance the Lake Turkana Wind Power project was simultaneously serving as chairperson of the board of Kenya Power, the entity that was a party to the power purchase agreement arising from that loan? The question was never satisfactorily answered in parliament.

Yeda Apopo was eventually pushed out of the Kenya Power chairmanship by the incoming Kenya Kwanza administration in 2022, but she retained the EADB directorship until her retirement.

By the time she left, the EADB had spent $4.4 million in legal fees between 2016 and 2024 while declaring zero dividends to its shareholder governments, according to testimony presented to the East African Legislative Assembly by a civil society petition in September 2025.

The largest single recovery action that consumed those legal fees was the Tuju case, pursued through London arbitration, the UK High Court, the Kenya High Court, the Kenya Court of Appeal, and eventually the Supreme Court of Kenya.

Yeda Apopo’s departure meant she would not be present to answer for any of it.

WHAT THE SILENCE CONCEALS

Neither Tuju nor Yeda Apopo has made any public statement addressing the nature of their personal relationship.

The social media posts that alleged a romantic connection between them, circulating from at least November 2020 and resurging in March 2026 as the property seizures became front-page news, remain unverified by any official record.

Tuju’s court filings describe the second tranche’s non-disbursement as the cause of his default.

They do not, in the filings that are part of the public record, attribute the initial loan to any personal relationship.

What the filings do establish, read in conjunction with the testimony that Tuju sought to introduce as new evidence, is that there were representations made outside the written agreement that Tuju believed would be honoured.

What they also establish is that a former EADB country manager, in sworn testimony, appears to have confirmed that the loan was structured in two phases in a manner that was not fully reflected in the contractual documentation.

The courts declined to examine those representations because the procedural pathway to doing so was closed.

The UK judgment came first.

The Kenyan recognition of that judgment came second.

Every subsequent attempt to introduce evidence that might have qualified or changed the outcome of those proceedings was dismissed as an attempt to relitigate matters already determined. That is not a failure of justice in the technical legal sense. But it is a failure of the full truth to emerge.

And in that gap between legal process and full truth sits the relationship between Tuju and Yeda Apopo. Whatever its precise character, it was a relationship between two Kenyans at the apex of their respective spheres of influence, operating in an institution whose governance was already compromised by the kind of concentrated personal authority that makes verbal assurances feel as solid as signed documents.

It was a relationship that, by the internal logic of EADB’s decision-making during Yeda Apopo’s tenure, made the Tuju loan possible on terms that a more arms-length process might not have produced.

That relationship, whatever its character, appears to have been the invisible third party to the 2015 transaction.

It is what substituted for the contractual certainty of the second tranche. It is what made a Sh294 million commitment feel real without ever being reduced to paper.

And when it ended, or when its protections ceased to operate, what remained was a written security package that gave EADB everything it needed to enforce, and a borrower whose only defence depended on oral representations that no court was willing to evaluate.

On March 14, 2026, three months and fourteen days after Vivienne Yeda Apopo retired from the East African Development Bank, armed police and uniformed officers arrived at Dari Restaurant and Business Park on the Ngong Road in Karen.

They sealed the compound, changed the locks, and handed possession to the receiver managers appointed by EADB. Raphael Tuju stood outside the gates he could no longer enter and spoke directly to the cameras in the language of a man who understands public narrative.

He described what was happening as a political assault. He invoked the constitution and the rule of law. He called the seizure an act of state-directed violence against a businessman who had tried to build something worth building in a country that should want more of the same. He was eloquent and composed, and he was, by any measure, a man watching the product of decades of work disappear behind a padlock that bore another institution’s name.

Whether the story he told that night was the full story is the question that this investigation has sought to examine.

The loan was real. The default was real. The judgment was real. The enforcement was legal. All of that is beyond dispute. But between the loan and the default, between the signing and the seizure, there was a phase of this transaction that has never been fully examined, a phase governed not by paper but by the assurances of a powerful woman to a powerful man in an institution where power was concentrated enough to make such assurances feel sufficient.

That phase, and the relationship that made it possible, is the untold story of how Raphael Tuju lost Dari.

NOTE

This investigation is based on sworn court filings from proceedings in England and Kenya, testimony recorded during cross-examination of EADB witnesses, a formal staff petition submitted to the EADB Board of Governors and widely published in 2016, parliamentary records including the Hansard of the National Assembly of Kenya dated November 23, 2022, the EADB’s official shareholding disclosures, public records of the Commercial Bank of Africa’s ownership structure, and reports of proceedings before the East African Legislative Assembly. No court has found as a matter of fact that any personal relationship, romantic or otherwise, existed between Raphael Tuju and Vivienne Yeda Apopo, and neither party has confirmed or denied such a relationship on the record. The allegations of a personal relationship circulating in social media are presented here as unverified. Nairobi Law Monthly makes no finding on this question. EADB has not responded to queries specific to this investigation at the time of publication. Vivienne Yeda Apopo could not be reached for comment.

March 27, 2026
Calls Mount To Investigate EADB Over Alleged Massive Corruption and Cartelism As EALA Says The Bank No Longer Serves Its Purpose In The Region

Regional lender faces explosive allegations of governance failure, with lawmakers promising thorough probe into claims of ‘mafia-style’ operations

DAR ES SALAAM – The East African Development Bank (EADB) faces mounting pressure for investigation after explosive allegations of systemic corruption and governance failures were presented to the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), with lawmakers expressing shock at claims the 50-year-old institution operates like a “mafia-style cartel.”

Peter Odhiambo, a Nairobi-based activist representing the Justice Alliance, on Friday appeared before EALA’s oversight committee with damning testimony alleging that the regional lender has been captured by private interests, straying far from its mandate to foster development across East Africa.

“This bank, whose vision was to foster development in our region, has become captive to a few people and will remain so unless EALA rises to the occasion,” Odhiambo warned the assembly in what observers described as one of the most serious challenges to the institution since its establishment.

Board Members ‘Write Off Own Loans’

Central to Odhiambo’s petition are allegations of a fundamentally broken governance system that has allowed board members to overstay their legal terms while allegedly benefiting personally from the institution they are meant to oversee.

“Some private sector board members have been in office for the last 18 years when ordinarily they should serve two terms of three years each. They probably currently own the bank because some of them have borrowed money from the bank, and then met as a board to write off those loans,” Odhiambo told the stunned committee.

The activist further alleged that certain individuals have served on advisory and board positions for over four decades without replacement, creating what he described as an entrenched system resistant to accountability and transparency.

Millions in Legal Fees, Zero Dividends

Perhaps the most financially damaging allegation centers on the bank’s expenditure patterns, which Odhiambo claims demonstrate a fundamental misuse of resources meant for regional development.

East African Development Bank (EADB) office.

Between 2016 and 2024, the bank paid USD 4.4 million in legal fees but declared zero dividends to its shareholders — the citizens of East Africa, while board members allegedly pocket USD 3,000 per sitting.

“Apart from board members who are paid USD 3,000 per sitting, there are lawyers who are also on the gravy train,” Odhiambo told the committee, calling for a forensic audit of the bank’s legal expenditures.

The revelation that shareholders — the governments and citizens of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda, along with private investors — have received no returns while legal costs soared has raised serious questions about the bank’s financial management and priorities.

False Diplomatic Immunity Claims

Adding to the governance concerns, Odhiambo alleged that senior EADB officials have attempted to shield themselves from criminal accountability by making false claims of diplomatic immunity.

He argued that the bank has used these immunity claims to block criminal cases, despite clarification from Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that EADB does not enjoy blanket protections under the Vienna Conventions.

This allegation takes on particular significance given recent legal troubles facing the institution, including the issuance of an arrest warrant for Isaac Nyongesa Okwara, EADB’s Chief Security Officer, who was charged with supplying false information to Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

EALA Promises Thorough Investigation

The petition drew strong reactions from EALA members, with several lawmakers expressing alarm at the scale and nature of the allegations presented.

South Sudan’s representative, Gai Deng, told the committee: “We are very shocked by this petition. The details that you have presented are so vast and I think it will require for us to do justice.”

The committee, chaired by Kenyan legislator Kennedy Musyoka Kalonzo and supported by Abdullahi Makawe, pledged to examine the petition thoroughly and determine appropriate action.

The promises of investigation come at a critical time for regional financial institutions, as development banks across Africa face increased scrutiny over governance and effectiveness in delivering on their mandates.

Regional Development at Stake

Established in 1967, EADB was created to promote economic development and regional integration through development financing and advisory services across East Africa.

The bank is jointly owned by the governments of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda, with additional shares held by private investors.

The institution has historically played a crucial role in financing infrastructure projects, supporting private sector development, and fostering trade within the East African Community. However, critics have long questioned its transparency and effectiveness in recent years.

The allegations come as East African countries increasingly rely on development finance to support post-pandemic economic recovery and infrastructure development.

Any loss of confidence in EADB’s governance could have broader implications for regional development financing.

Calls for Accountability Mount

Beyond the EALA petition, the allegations have sparked broader calls for accountability and reform within regional institutions.

Civil society groups across East Africa have increasingly raised concerns about transparency and governance in institutions meant to serve citizens’ interests.

The timing of the petition is particularly significant as East African governments face mounting debt burdens and increased scrutiny over the effectiveness of development spending.

Citizens and civil society groups are demanding greater accountability from institutions that operate with public resources.

For EADB, founded on the principle of fostering regional development and integration, the allegations represent a fundamental challenge to its credibility and mandate.

The bank’s response to the investigation and any reforms that may follow could determine its role in East Africa’s development future.

As EALA begins its investigation, the regional parliament faces the challenge of balancing thoroughness with the need to maintain confidence in critical regional institutions.

The outcome could set important precedents for accountability and governance across East African Community institutions.

The investigation is expected to examine not only the specific allegations raised by Odhiambo but also the broader governance structures and oversight mechanisms that have allowed the alleged problems to persist.

September 22, 2025
How Apopo’s tender wars earned Kenya Power a blacklist slot

It has emerged that the scandalous acting chairperson of Kenya Power Board, Vivienne Yeda Apopo and the former chairman of Kenya Pipeline John Ngumi are the architects behind the wrangles that have rocked the loss making Kenya Power.

Apopo who has a history of championing controversies is now colluding with Ngumi, the man who chairs President Uhuru Kenyatta’s panel to review Kenya Power purchase agreements to dictate tender winners by kicking out managers viewed as ‘obstacles’.

She has roped in Ngumi who is using his powerful position to change the management structure of Kenya Power board by planting his spanner boys like Sachen Gudka who was brought in to ensure that Asians in their looting ring win lucrative tenders.

Gudka was planted like Apopo or Elizabeth Rogo who joined to broker deals for international crooks, a role that earned her a slot in the larger and powerful cartel that includes Caroline Kittony who is a cousin to Baringo senator Gideon Moi.

The four board members have stumped excess authority over top managers at Kenya Power including the ouster of CEO Bernard Ngugi, a move that has was initially tried through the courts but he survived after a petition to remove him was dismissed.

John Ngumi [p/courtesy]
Ngugi became a good target because he was engaged in procurement malpractice. His three year term should end in October 2022 but his replacement has been found in Rosemary Oduor who is now serving in an acting capacity. Oduor is a close ally of Apopo and Ngumi’s cartel through which she lobbied for the position. She was also used to sponsor the case that saw Ngugi kicked out on grounds of corruption.

Ngugi was among the last managers who were still surviving at Kenya Power after ten other managers including Ken Tarus and former CEO Ben Chumo were kicked out in July 2018 after they abused office and cut deals with a dubious private firm which supplied faulty transformers.

But it is Apopo’s tender wars with Ngugi that have pushed the donor community to issue threats to withdraw funding for the struggling Kenya Power. She is completely blind to the blows the agency suffered when France chose to withdraw funding after a section of the management was accused of interfering with the tenders at the parastatal.

The wars intensified after power transmission line contractors association took Kenya Power to the public procurement administrative review board to block a flouted tender. The body was pushing for a review against the accounting officer, Kenya Power in tender no KP1/6E.1/PT/1/21/ A89.

The power transmission line contractors association were challenging the supply and extension of low voltage lines last mile connectivity at the average cost of Sh20 million. Tender documents show that (LOT-A) involved supply and extension of LV single phase lines and service cables in Migori, Bomet, Nyamira, Homa Bay, Kisii and Kericho counties calculated at Sh9.2milllion or USD 83,500,000.

And the supply and extension of LV single phase lines and service cables in Kisumu, Siaya, Vihiga, Busia, Bungoma and Kakamega counties was listed under LOT B at a cost of Sh7.4 million or USD 67,100 but only Sh3,3 million was earmarked for Lot C similar program in Embu, Murang’a, Meru and Tharaka Nithi counties.

The power transmission line contractors association demanded for an order annulling the tender document and the entire procurement process just after the closure of the tender. The body also wanted Kenya Power to withdraw the tender notice and re-advertise it through a fresh notice without the supply and extension works.

But Kenya Power’s response proved futile after they filed a memorandum of response on July 5 2021 to object the demands by power transmission line contractors.

August 12, 2021
Alarm Raised Over Steady Looting at East Africa Development Bank By DG Vivienne Yeda Apopo

EADB DG, Vivienne Apopo

Refer to the whistle blower report we published previously regarding the scandals at the East African Development Bank and the call to request the Director General Vivienne Yeda to step aside after 7 years of oppressive leadership at the Bank. Following the whistle Blowers dossier received by board members early June, Senior managers met with the Board members on the 15th July 2016 and were able to substantiate with evidence the details published about Vivienne Yeda, the Director General of EADB as true.

Despite the board members receiving collaborative evidence that what was written about Vivienne Yeda was the truth, Vivienne has been left to continue with her work as if nothing happened. More shocking details have emerged on how Vivienne Yeda has misappropriated the Bank funds in a number of ways as we shall explain in this article. Staff members are calling on the member states of the East African Development Bank including Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania, to commission their respective auditor general’s offices to carry out an investigation on the actions of Vivienne Yeda and how she has squandered tax payer’s money. That she should be asked to step aside for the period of the investigations in order not to interfere with the investigations team. Despite the board members confirming the shocking revelations as true, they have done nothing to interdict her. You will know why no action has been taken in this article.

During the interview between the senior managers and the board members, the Directors were shocked to hear that staff never receive end of year bonuses even when the board has annually approved a budget of USD 65,000 annually for staff end of year bonuses. Vivienne has been drawing the entire USD 65,000 which ends up on her personal account. She normally channels such monies through the staff payroll which is managed by Deloitte to her personal account.

Such money is usually transferred to her account either at end of the year or beginning of the year. Investigations can be carried out at Deloitte to confirm the staff salary figures sent to them during these periods starting 2013/2014, 2014/2015 and 2014/2015. Staff members are still in shock that the Director General has been embezzling money meant for staff bonuses. Vivienne has also negotiated her salary increment with the board twice during her 7 years tenor at the helm of the Bank. The board approved both increments; one in the middle of her first five years and the second at the time when she was renewing her contract. Much as the board was shocked to learn that it’s only her who gets salary increments at the Bank.

The fact that she is the DG, Head of legal and Company secretary, she normally alters board minutes to indicate that he salary increment was to take effect one year back for the first increment and a couple of months back for the second increment. Looking at the staff payroll for the periods when her salary was increased, one would notice large sums of money which were channeled through the payroll to her account. Other such dubious payments have been taken out of the Bank to her account through the payroll. She uses the staff payroll to channel funds to her account because she knows the payroll is never scrutinized.

The former finance manager who resigned at the end of May this year was never allowed to look at the payroll because he would question such payments. We doubt that the board would approve bonuses and salary increments to only one person in the Bank. Red peppernews paper in Uganda and as per the whistle blower dozzier, informed you in their article of 13th July 2016 that staff don’t receive any form of motivation either through training and career enhancement or travel and exposure even when funds have been set aside for these purposes.

We confirm that unlike other previuos Director Generals, the Bank pays Vivienne both the profident fund, which she recieves annually and contributes towards her pension which she is supposed to receive when she leaves the services of the Bank. The annual provident fund payment is usually made directly to her account through the Bank’s SWIFT payment system and this appears in the general legder. The USD 65,000 mentioned above can not be her provident fund since it is paid out through the staff payroll. Towards the end of July 2016 even after the board had sat to discuss the whistle blowers report, she went a head to request HR to pay her pension through the end of July staff payroll. Pension is supposed to be paid when a staff member has left the services of the Bank.

But she wanted her pension paid out with the July salary. But after HR had consulted with the senior advisor to the DG, Mr. George Aaron, they declined to pay the pension to her because this would have been iregular. During last year, Vivienne requested finance department to pay her USD 175,000 calling it pension/provident fund in arrears which is fradulent. The finance department declined to pay the money to her account because she failed to provide clear documentation for the money. This needs to be investigated.
In 2014, the Bank was rated by AADFI as the best DFI in Africa.

This was after she had bribed the rating team to give her the top position. Much as one could say, this was good for the Bank’s image,it is not sustainable. The image of the Bank should be enhanced by improving gorvernance, systems, policies and structures in the Bank. At most, the rating agencies coud have been bribed when she is also doing much to improve the Bank. But this has not happened.

She has boosted of posting profits for the Bank, but this is all not true. A lot can be discovered in this area but we shall bring out on example when she has fradulently reported profits which is not real. The Bank is supposed to value all its assets annually and the valuation figures taken into consideration when reporting profits. The high the value of assets the higher the profits reports. Recently a firm was hired to value the Bank assets in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The firm carried out the valuatioin exercise in all the three countries and submitted the reports to the Bank. She was okay with the value of assets in Kenya and Uganda. Because the Bank’s assets in Tanzania returned a lower real market value than she had hoped for, she asked the firm to inflate the figures of the value of assets in Tanzania, but the firm refused. she instead hired another firm which re-valued the assets in Tanzania to give them a value of her choice.

If she had used the real market value as reported by the first firm, it would have reduced the amount of profits reported. But the fact that the second firm hired agreed to her demands, they reported a value which she wanted, and as thus, this helped her to report an increased amount of profits. The Bank money twice for the same service and the results of the assignment were compromised. In the June dossier, we reported that she reported a wrong Non-performing loans percentage to the board of 0.83% instead of 5% during the end of Feb 2016 boarding meeting held in Nairobi. This was to avoid reporting on some Kenyan projects like DARI, Abarderes and Benvar Estates which were non-performing.

Non-performing loans are supposed to be provided for and if the mentioned projects had been reported and provided for, they would erode most of the profits she was reporting to the board. These two examples show Vivienne has been reporting fraudulent profits to the board to give them the impression that the Bank is performing well, when its actually not performing that much and not growing at the same time. This is fraudulent and false reporting to the board and should be investigated and stopped. So many other lies have been told to the board. Believe it or not, this is not sustainable.

NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 22: Director General of East African Development Bank Vivienne Yeda speaks during the 30th Annual Awards Gala hosted by The Africa-America Institute at Gotham Hall on September 22, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for The African-American Institute)

During the board which sat on the 14th July 2016, Vivienne falsified the portfolio report on the number and amount of projects approved and disbursed between January to July 2016. She reported some of the projects which were approved and disbursed in Q4 of 2015 as projects which were approved and disbursed in 2016 to confuse the board members since the previous dozzier had reported that only two projects had been approved for the entire bank between Jan to June 2016. All these lies are to show the board that she is performing when in real sense there are huge issues within the Bank. This can be verified with the Portfolio management unit in Bank, the chief internal auditor and the finance manager.

Board members were also shocked to learn that renovation of the Head office building on plot 4 Nile avenue cost the Bank (and the tax payer of East Africa) USD 6.6 million. The board did not know that the cost had escalated to this level because she did not seek board approval for the entire sum in one go. She presented the renovations budgets to the board in piecemeal. We believe USD 6.6 million could have put up a brand new building the size of the EADB head office and more. Of concern is that the contractors and the project managers who implemented the renovations were single sourced and the contracts negotiated and approved by herself. She has deliberately refused to put in place a procurement committee and at the same time the bank does not have a procurement expert to support these very expensive procurement contracts. We request that an audit in the processes and procedures of procuring and negotiating the renovations contract be investigated.

Experts can be called in to value the cost of the renovations to confirm that the work actually cost USD 6.6 million and that there was value for tax payers money. The renovations have gone on since 2012 until todate. The fact that the implementation team comprised her friends (project managers and architects who were handpicked from Kenya using a single sourcing method to manage the project), we believe the value of the contracts was inflated so as to give her kickbacks.

The same project managers and architects have been building a hotel and apartments for her in one of the national parks in Kenya which has just been completed. The construction of her hotel and apartments progressed at the same time with the office renovations and it is believed that money for some of the inflated office renovation bills went to her hotel construction.

Another building that has been renovated by the Bank whose renovation costs, value for money and the procedures followed to procure the service providers are being challenged, is a block of apartments commonly referred to as “block 4” in Naguru. The cost of USD 6.6 million mentioned above does not include the renovation costs for this block of apartments. This should also be investigated.

Senior managers have been shocked to hear that the information they provided to the board members confirming the allegations, even after the board chairman had assured managers that they were protected and therefore should not fear to say the truth, has licked to Vivienne including which manager mentioned what. Managers wonder why the board went on to ask the senior managers to expose themselves by revealing the truth, if they knew they were not going to take any action.

The result of this has exposed some managers to harassment and threats from Vivienne and her machinery. Some of these managers have received threatening phone calls indicating that something bad will happen to them and their families if they don’t stop revealing information about Vivienne Yeda.
The first whistle blower report and the red pepper article of 13th July reported that 99% of all international travels at the Bank are undertaken by Vivienne Yeda alone.

An analysis carried on the costs associated with her travels between 2013 and to date reveal that she spends not less than USD 135,000 per year on her travel related costs alone. This is a lot of money and therefore value for this money needs to be investigated.

As per the whistle blowers reported published in red pepper on the 13th July 2016, Vivienne Yeda refused to hire staff to fill all key vacant positions in the Bank and therefore heavily relies on the use of very expensive consultants who have cost the Bank a lot of money with no value for money. The Bank has a legal department with no lawyers at all. She single handedly sourced an international law firm called “Eversheds” based in London who have been doing the day to day legal work at the Bank. This law firm has todate cost the Bank USD 1.2 million to do work which would have ordinarily been done by the staff members in the legal department.

These colossal sums have been spent without a formal contract between EADB and Eversheds, (Atleast no staff member has seen the contract and the terms of engagement including the finance department that is always forced to prepare payments for such expenses. Noformal procurement procedures were followed and most importantly there is not value for money for the work this law firm has been hired to do for the Bank. It also emerged that Vivienne Yeda’s daughter who has been pursuing her studies in the UK worked at this law firm, raising question marks on the possible conflict of interest in giving this law firm huge sums of money. The work of eversheds, the procurement process and value for money should also be investigated.

The Bank received grants worth over USD 3 million from AfDB, DEG and KfW for various capacity building activities at the Bank. That fact that the Bank does not have a procurement committee and a procurement specialist; it becomes questionable how these huge contracts have been selected and awarded. Though for some grants especially from AfDB, the AfDB team got involved in the procurement of consultants though she still wanted to be fraudulent about the process. The fact that Vivienne Yeda single handedly approves the final bidders, to whom these consultancy contracts are awarded, raises several question marks. Some of the contracts cost over USD 900,000 per single consultancy contract.

The fact that key staff positions at the Bank are vacant due to the fact that several senior staff members have resigned because they could not continue working under such conditions. The capacity building interventions will not benefit the Bank much. For the Bank of less than 70 staff members, about 44 staff have resigned since 2012 todate. The systems and policies/operating guidelines being introduced in the Bank don’t add much value when the key users are not in their positions. In a letter written by African Development Bank after an audit they carried out at EADB in April 2016.

The report was addressed to Vivienne Yeda and signed by the Manager Portfolio Management Division atAfDB. The letter reads in part as an example “despite AfDB having given EADB guidance on procurement process for a credit cycle management consultancy firm, to undertake a credit management cycle documentation consultancy assignment at the Bank, Vivienne Yeda’s choice of the consulting firm to be selected was a Kenyan firm charging over USD 800,000 almost three times the price of the next candidate who charged below 300,000”. In AfDB’s opinion after reviewing the technical proposals and credentials of the other firms, the other two consultancy firms that had applied for the consultancy work were also well qualified to deliver the consultancy based on the terms of reference provided. It is possible that these consultancy contracts are inflated and the consultancy firms selected end up giving hefty kick backs to Vivienne Yeda. Most of the contracts with consultants and other service provider have been determined in this manner.

The African Development Bank audit report about EADB further reads in part, we quote “the AfDB officers who carried out the audit noted that, there were several bleaches regarding operational limits in treasury, bleaches in procurement guidelines, and non-compliance of policy in relation to credit approval of some of the high value transactions’. The report further read that “Management committee is effectively made of only the Director General (Vivienne Yeda) which we believe does not conform to best practice and does not exhibit good corporate governance”. These revelations make any one wonder why audit firms like KPMG who carries out quarterly audits at the bank for hefty sums of money have not been able to flag these weaknesses.

The Bank has an internal audit department, but the fact that they have been very critical of how Vivienne conducts bank business (they have reported to the board several times despite the board not taking any serious actions), she chose to frustrate them by not bothering about their reports. She instead chose to duplicate their role by hiring KPMG to carry out quarterly audit reviews at the Bank. Despite the fact that KPMG’s reports indicate that there are no issues at all at the Bank, they have cost the Bank and the tax payers money USD 382,000. We believe she retained KPMG to cover up her loot and since KPMG is looked at as a credible audit firm, the board members would not question their reports but also dismiss the issues raised by the internal audit. The annual financial audit is carried out by PWC, much as we are surprised that they have also not been able to raise a red flag (not even noticing that lots of money is chanelled through Vivienne Yeda’s account through the payroll, among other flaws) of the appalling situation at the Bank.

Vivienne Apopo signing a deal

When the whistle blower report which red pepper published on the 13th July 2016 first came out, Vivienne Yeda hired KPMG Kenya to come and investigate the source of the whistle blower dossier. It was surprising to see that a firm of KPMG’s caliber could accept to investigate the origin of the report as opposed to investigating the facts contained in the report. We believe they have been compromised by money. KPMG came into the EADB offices on the night of 23rd June 2016 in the absence of staff members and hacked into computers of all staff members to try and find out who might have originated the dossier but also to try and delete some of the documents that might be incriminating to Ms. Yeda. The fact that they copied information from hard discs of all staff computers, it is evident that all bank information is now in the hands of those individuals who took the information under the directive of Vivienne Yeda. KPMG went ahead to isolate some managers who were interrogated on 4th July 2016 and their statements recorded to try and find the originator of the dossier. KPMG Kenya has issued an invoice for USD 22,000 to be paid by the Bank (without any engagement letter and terms of reference) for investigating the whistle blower. This is not acceptable. She has hired full times services of an ex-police detective (a one Egessa) to try and investigate staff in efforts to identify the person who originated the dossier. This police detective together with one of the law firms which the Bank uses regularly have helped her to file a complaint which she has taken to Interpol asking them to give her additional protection (in disguise that her life is in danger) but also to give her permission to get staff phone records and also tap staff phone conversations.

This is not acceptable. She has hired full times services of an ex-police detective (a one Egessa) to try and investigate staff in efforts to identify the person who originated the dossier. This police detective together with one of the law firms which the Bank uses regularly have helped her to file a complaint which she has taken to Interpol asking them to give her additional protection (in disguise that her life is in danger) but also to give her permission to get staff phone records and also tap staff phone conversations.

The ex-police detective moves around office with a tape recorder recording staff conversation.
The reason it is being proposed that each EADB member state should commission their auditor general’s office to investigate the massive abuse of office and misuse of tax payers money at the regional Bank is that, each member state (Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania) contribute USD 4.5 million annually as their capital contribution towards the lending activities of the Bank. In other words, Yeda has at her disposal USD 18 million contributed annually by the member states from tax payers money in the hope that the Bank would lend out the money to befitting projects to promote social economic development among the member states.Seeing how the board has chosen to protect someone who is using tax payer’s money in this manner, one wonders why the governments should not channel this money in other useful projects if the Bank cannot get good leadership to enhance the mandate of the Bank. EADB should have been much bigger and visible that it is today if the Board had agreed to change the top leadership at the Bank.

This article reveals some shocking details as to why, despite all the information out there concerning Yeda’s abuse of power and office, she has remained in her office intact and untouchable. The Board members received the whistle blower dossier at the beginning of June 2016 as confirmed by Mr. Muhakanizi during the red pepper interview leading to the publication of 13th July 2016. The same was also confirmed by the chairman of the board on the 15th July 2016 when meeting senior managers of the Bank.

Anyone reading this would have expected the board to have taken immediate action (asking Vivienne to step aside for investigations jointly commissioned by the Bank member states to take place) but this has not happened. Usually under such circumstances, the board would convene urgently to hear from both sides, which they did (board sat one and a half months after they received the report). The board would recommend to the Governing Council of the Bank which comprises of the Ministers of Finance of the Bank Member states who have the powers to sack the Director General according to the charter that governs the Bank. 75% of the Governing board members must vote to sack her if she is to be fired.

Two weeks after the board confirming the allegations, the Director General is still going on with her work at the Bank as usual, and renovations and hiring of consultants is still going on. This procedure should naturally not apply under situations where it is clear that Bank funds have been misappropriated? Is has emerged that the board has remained divided on whether they recommend to terminate her contract or not. As opposed to normal practices in other financial institutions, EADB Board members are allowed to borrow from their own Bank (purely against good corporate governance practices). As earlier reported by the whistle blower and published in the 13th July red pepper, EADB board members borrow hefty sums of money from the Bank to run their personal businesses. Much as Mr. Muhakanizi in his interview with red pepper denied any board member applying for any loans from the Bank, we confirm that, in 2014 the Bank approved a loan of USD 4 million to Mr. Muhakanizi through a real estatescompany called Reunion Estates Ltd. The Bank approved a loan of USD 500,000 for another board member from Kenya called Mr. Francis Karuiru through his company “Edron Communications Ltd’ based in Kenya. Because of the above, board members have been compromised and therefore don’t want to make a firm recommendation to terminate the services of the mighty Yeda.

This being tax payers money, we call upon Governments to take action. The Ministers also don’t get detailed information from board members (who are their permanent secretaries) regarding the affairs at the Bank because of their vested interests which is purely a conflict of interest.
We also report that the Bank, its staff and assets are protected under diplomatic immunity. This means that Yeda and the Bank cannot be sued in local courts of law. This could also explain why she also went against the laws of the EAC member states that protects whistle blowers setting clear procedures to be followed when a whistle blower report comes out. It’s because of this immunity that she has had easy access to Interpol to start investigating who the author of the dossier could be so that the author is punished instead of the accused. A cover letter forwarding the whistle blowers report to the IGG and requesting them to launch an investigation into the abuse of office is attached to this dozzier, but because of the Bank’s immunity, it seems the IGG’s office lacks the Mandate to investigate the Director General.

We believe the immunity status was among others aimed at protecting the Bank and the tax payer’s money. Right now, the Bank’s diplomatic immunity is being used to protect an individual who has abused tax payer’s money. The rights of staff members are being infringed upon the fact that their phone conversations are being tapped; their phone records have been printed and investigated. These staff members are innocent and suffering because one person has bribed her way into impunity.

The auditor General offices among the Bank member states are called upon to investigate the allegations so that Vivienne can account for her actions. This will help retsorestability and growth at this regional Bank.

September 12, 2016
Vivienne Yeda Apopo, Lady Who Nearly Became Central Bank Of Kenya Governor Could Be Collapsing East African Development Bank

Ms Vivienne Yeda Apopo, Director General EADB.

A good number of people do not know Vivienne Apopo but amongst the banking fraternity, she’s one of the most powerful figures of the industry in the region. Vivienne Yeda Apopo is a Kenyan banker and business attorney. She is the current Director General of East African Development Bank(EADB). She assumed that position on 15 January 2009. She also currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Kenya, since 14 March 2011.

The East African Development Bank (EADB) is a development finance institution with the objective of promoting development in the member countries of the East African Community. Governments of Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda both have stakes in the Bank. Coincidentally, African Development Bank and Commercial Bank of Africa which is affiliated to President Uhuru also have stakes in the Estimated USD381M assets valued bank.

Vivienne was posed by a section of ruling elite to succeed Njunguna Ndung’u as the Central Bank Of Kenya Governor since they viewed her as a compliant to innuendos that they might pursue. Her bid however didn’t materialize. However, from information within Kenya Insights hold, Apopo’s efforts did materialize elsewhere, creating a corruption and impunity den at EADB.

The lady boss who is a darling to the President given that he holds stakes in EADB, boasts of being untouchable making her run the institution as she wishes knowing no repercussion would befall her in line.

Distressed staff members wrote a petition to the Board of Governors of EADB detailing gross misconduct but Kenya Insights is informed by insiders that she used her influence to silence and water down the petition forcing the staff to seek other alternatives including writing a letter directly to the President who happens to be a double shareholder as GoK and CBA.

The petition from EADB staff members below, details the gritty details of how Apopo is slowly but steadily running down one of the highly valued Banks in the region something that should worry all stakeholders, majorly the individual governments.

We, a group of staff at EADB write to express our concern over the manner in which the Bank is being run under the leadership of Ms. Vivienne Yeda Apopo. We bring to the attention of the concerned parties requesting that her services as Director General at EADB should be terminated immediately for several reasons some of which we will explain below; Despite the fact that the Bank went through a restructuring process in 2011, the loan book is not growing.

The DG is hesitant to grow the business. Much as she might have been good at cleaning up the book and recovering the written off loan (which account for a bigger percentage of the profit the bank has been reporting) she does not have the will and capacity to grow the loan book. The business teams within the Bank have brought in several viable projects in the pipeline but she never wants to approve them or recommend them to the board. Some of these projects have very high social and economic development impacts and are financially viable but she has declined most of them.

The Bank is currently highly capitalized with regular share capital contributions from the member states. The bank has also been able to attract several lines of credits from the likes of African Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, BADEA, OPEC, etc. However out of the Bank total assets of USD 381 million, only USD 165 million has been utilized to lend to projects. The Balance of USD 216 million has been placed as short term deposits in commercial banks.

To confirm that the current DG does not have the interest or capacity to grow this strategic Bank for the region, if you check through the records at the Bank, you will find that over the last 3 years, projects valued at over USD 200 million, (most of which are viable) have been declined and removed from the Bank pipeline at her instructions. Countries like Rwanda and Tanzania have financed less than 5 projects each in the last five years. Yet these countries have a pipeline that she declines, even when the country units and the projects committee of the Bank have recommended them for financing. Uganda and Kenya have equally suffered the same. Countries like Rwanda and Tanzania also subscribe to share capital from tax payers money and yet they are not fully benefiting from the Bank. Her lack of interest to grow the Bank has become worse in that since we started this year of

2016, only two projects in the entire Bank have been presented to the board for approval and we still don’t have projects that she has cleared for detailed appraisal as candidate for the next board approval. We are likely to see no business at all this year much as the Bank still receives viable projects that require funding and at the same time the Bank is well capitalized. The two projects which were approved early this year are far away from being disbursed due to a very slow legal documentation process caused by the reasons we shall highlight below.

Because the Bank is not lending and yet it is well capitalized (some of the lines of credits are used to reimburse some of the projects which have already been funded/disbursed which is fraudulent) the Bank profits have started dropping as evidenced in 2015, which situation is likely to continue because the high profits recorded in the previous years were mainly from recoveries of loans previously written off. These written off projects have fully paid up and at the same time the book is not growing because we are not lending. Coupled with some bad projects which she has single handedly pushed to the board even when the rest of the teams in the Bank have recommended not to proceed (Like Dari Ltd in Kenya) the bank will soon find its self in the situation it was in about 8 years ago with no business, high NPL’s and with some court cases which might take the direction of blue line case.

Much as she declines a number of projects, she still accepts some projects in which she is deemed to have personal interest because some of them are at times not viable like the DARI we have just mentioned above. The Bank needs a new DG who will put systems and structures in place, empower and respect the structures to deliver. Otherwise the Bank is not visible at all in the region and we risk becoming irrelevant very soon.

List of EADB owners and stakes.

Out of all the projects approved by board in the last three years, projects worth over USD 150 million have never been disbursed and will never be disbursed. A few of these projects were declined or halted by the clients but over 80% of these projects were stopped by the DG. The clients got so frustrated and end up going to look for funding somewhere else. She does not want to grow the book and she ends up frustrating good projects. The Bank’s name in the market has been tainted partly because of this practice.

In the first place, she brings such projects to the board to show the board that she is working hard, but at the back of her mind, she is simply manipulating the board members to approve her other requests which have nothing to do with business. She did a lot of that to get the board to approve the several budgets for renovations of the office and residential bank houses, on top of using it as a lobby tool for the board to give her the current contract. We wonder why the board does not ask despite approving many projects, the book is not growing. Please note that all projects we bring to the board will have paid 1%

of the loan amount as appraisal fees. We are supposed to refund 75% of that 1% if we don’t disburse the project. However the appraisal fees refund process has been applied selectively. Clients known to her normally receive their refunds and those not known to her or the small ones never get their refunds. An example is, she refunded appraisal fees for the Rai Holdings group (a multimillion dollar company) but refused to refund for a small farmers organization called Igara Tea Growers. Over USD 500,000 remains un refunded to date much as these funds were part of the profits declared by Bank. Some of the clients have threatened to take the Bank to court if these monies are not refunded.

The Bank is currently experiencing serious governance issues with the current DG making all decisions by herself at all levels. She approves all payments even for buying coffee, she approved any project into the pipeline, she approves all term sheets, she approves all appraisal reports, etc. in other words the Bank is one a person show and if she is away, every thing comes to a stand still. Since she travels a lot and even when she has left any one in charge, that person can never approve or make any decision on anything without her express instructions (even if she is in Europe) which stalls so many activities at the Bank.

The Bank is supposed to have a staff structure comprised of the DG and other Directors/Head of Departments, among others. The Directors/Heads of departments would be running the day to day affairs of the Bank and leave her as the DG to make strategic decisions for the Bank. However the opposite is true. She manages each and every aspect of the Bank’s day to day operations which stifle activities and decision making at the Bank. For very many years now she has refused to fill most gaps in the organization structure which leaves her to run the bank as an individual would run a house hold. She has told some people that the EAC region does not have qualified people that can be recruited to run the Bank in those positions and yet other institutions have been able to recruit people from within the region.

Remember the Bank recruits very highly qualified and skilled staff who once they get into the bank, she makes them idle. She is scared of being challenged and the reason she makes all decisions by her self. This means that all existing structures and activities of the Bank must wait for her approval before anything moves, however small the decision to make might be. We invite the board members to come and interact with staff members in the absence of the DG, they will be shocked at what mess the DG has put this Bank into. In all her life as DG at EADB, she has never held a single management meeting with the senior managers in the Bank and not even with the country managers responsible for the different countries. She has never addressed staff, she never

participates in staff end of year parties, and therefore no body in the Bank knows her vision and strategy for the Bank. Which leaves every one guessing which direction the Bank will take apart from herself? Since she solely determines which projects the Bank should fund, the basis of which is some times is not project viability, rather personal interest and whether she knows the project owners personally or not.

For sure the Bank can not do business in that way. The Bank is currently managing a line of credit from KfW of Euros 8 million with a Euros 1 million for Technical assistance. The financial institutions who benefited from this line of credit include; Dfcu bank (Euro 5 million), Ecobank Uganda (Euros 1.5 million) and Finance Trust bank (Euro 1.5 million). The selection of Dfcu bank and Ecobank were influenced by the DG personally. The fund is meant for rural enterprises but Ecobank has only 4 branches out of Kampala and may not effectively utilize the funds.

Funds were disbursed to Dfcu in July 2015 but todate they have on lent less than 10% of the funds. Ecobank has held the funds for close 6 months now and they have not lent even a single coin. The staff had preferred the smaller banks like Finance Trust bank who have to date lent out over 90% of the funds we disbursed. The smaller banks whose main mandate is to lend in rural areas are more effective for this kind of fund as longer as they are regulated by the central bank. The DG insists on putting in place tough conditions which weed out the smaller banks in the process. The IPC consultants hire by KfW are currently in the bank and can confirm this information. This is an example to show bad leadership and how the DG wants to manage each and every process and decision in the bank. Of course we would propose that KfW puts a halt to the ongoing process for the new agribusiness line of credit until the board has sorted out leadership issues at the Bank otherwise the funds may not meet the objective for which it is meant to achieve.

The permanent secretary Ministry of Finance sits on the board of the Bank and therefore KfW could make sure the board acts through the Ministry of finance. The Bank had a strategy 2010 to 2015, but this strategy changed several times depending on who she was presenting it to. Staff members were not allowed access to the strategy and as a result, if you randomly talked to most staff especially managers and below, they don’t know which direction the Bank is heading. We proposed several times to her that the Bank should hold meetings with all staff to cascade the strategy down wards but she refused all that. Right now the Bank is supposed to be developing a strategy for 2016 to 2020, however she hired a consultant from the UK who is paid very expensively to develop a strategy alone. This activity has not involved other staff and therefore the draft strategy is only

known to her and the consultant. We believe she is preparing the strategy document to simply meet the requirements of the board members and other external parties. However like many other documents prepared by consultants it will never be cascaded widely within the Bank. This can also be confirmed by the IPC consultants who were hired as part of the KfW line of credit technical assistance. So most likely business will continue as usual. She sets targets for countries arbitrarily without putting in place resources to help counties achieve these targets.

The DG does not even hold the quarterly and annual appraisal meetings with the managers who report directly to her. She has delegated this role to a HR consultancy firm (adept systems/Sally Mukwana based in Nairobi) which firm does not appreciate the day today challenges the staff go through in order to do their jobs. Even when the consultant is told of the challenges the staff go through dealing with a DG who can not communicate properly with staff, despises every one, they can’t change how she operates because they still want to be hired for the job.

The HR consultant resorts to intimidating staff and sometimes recommending some of them for firing or not renewing their contracts simply based on imagination. The internal HR unit has been reduced to clerks and can never advise the DG and she takes in their advice. The staff members are de-motivated and frustrated which ends up in many staff members simply resigning and moving on. If some one cares to cross check this information, get to the Bank records and you will be surprised at how many staff have resigned in the last 4 years for such a small organization. This destabilizes the Bank since staff members that are critical to the Bank and have gained understanding of how the bank operates, normally leave the Bank.

The Bank needs stability and growth. But this can not and will never be achieved under the current leadership of our DG. Adept systems consultancy firm (Sally Mukwana) has continuously been retained by the Bank for over four years now, initially to support the recruitment process but after failing to recruit staff. They have ended up duplicating roles of the HR department on an ongoing basis and yet the HR manager and her staff are left idle. The consultancy firm has cost the Bank close to USD 500,000 over time doing assignments which should have been implemented by the HR department if we had a DG who respects her staff.

Much as the Bank might have required short term HR consultancies, they should never have taken on lots of the roles played by the HR unit on a long term basis. The HR consultants have even on several occasions gone to present to the board, when it should have been the HR manager doing this. As a result these permanent consultants cost the Bank a lot of money in air tickets, 5 star hotel accommodation for long periods and consultancy fees. This is a waste of tax payer’s money and gross abuse of office by the DG who hires them.

Because she can not manage people and she never wants to implement recommendations from a professional HR manager, she retains these HR consultants to manage and intimidate staff on her behalf.

known to her and the consultant. We believe she is preparing the strategy document to simply meet the requirements of the board members and other external parties. However like many other documents prepared by consultants it will never be cascaded widely within the Bank. This can also be confirmed by the IPC consultants who were hired as part of the KfW line of credit technical assistance. So most likely business will continue as usual.

She sets targets for countries arbitrarily without putting in place resources to help counties achieve these targets. The DG does not even hold the quarterly and annual appraisal meetings with the managers who report directly to her. She has delegated this role to a HR consultancy firm (adept systems/Sally Mukwana based in Nairobi) which firm does not appreciate the day today challenges the staff go through in order to do their jobs. Even when the consultant is told of the challenges the staff go through dealing with a DG who can not communicate properly with staff, despises every one, they can’t change how she operates because they still want to be hired for the job.

The HR consultant resorts to intimidating staff and sometimes recommending some of them for firing or not renewing their contracts simply based on imagination. The internal HR unit has been reduced to clerks and can never advise the DG and she takes in their advice. The staff members are de-motivated and frustrated which ends up in many staff members simply resigning and moving on. If some one cares to cross check this information, get to the Bank records and you will be surprised at how many staff have resigned in the last 4 years for such a small organization.

This destabilizes the Bank since staff members that are critical to the Bank and have gained understanding of how the bank operates, normally leave the Bank. The Bank needs stability and growth. But this can not and will never be achieved under the current leadership of our DG. Adept systems consultancy firm (Sally Mukwana) has continuously been retained by the Bank for over four years now, initially to support the recruitment process but after failing to recruit staff. They have ended up duplicating roles of the HR department on an ongoing basis and yet the HR manager and her staff are left idle. The consultancy firm has cost the Bank close to USD 500,000 over time doing assignments which should have been implemented by the HR department if we had a DG who respects her staff.

Much as the Bank might have required short term HR consultancies, they should never have taken on lots of the roles played by the HR unit on a long term basis. The HR consultants have even on several occasions gone to present to the board, when it should have been the HR manager doing this. As a result these permanent consultants cost the Bank a lot of money in air tickets, 5 star hotel accommodation for long periods and consultancy fees. This is a waste of tax payer’s money and gross abuse of office by the DG who hires them. Because she can not manage people and she never wants to implement recommendations from a professional HR manager, she retains these HR consultants to manage and intimidate staff on her behalf.

Of great concern is how she has handled the legal department in the Bank. The current DG was in the past years at the Bank as head of legal. Which roles she still duplicates up to today even when she is the DG. The legal department is very critical to the operations of the Bank but it has been crippled because of her. About 3 years ago, the bank had a stable and well experienced team of 4 lawyers from within the region (one from each country), who she frustrated and they all left the Bank.

These lawyers are still within the region working in various institutions they went holding very senior positions. So someone can talk to them to collaborate our story. After they resigned, she hired 4 other lawyers; 3 from Europe, 1 from USA and 1 from Kenya. These lawyers struggled to understand the local lawyers. Coupled with her frustrating them and not allowing them to question any thing, they all resigned in a space one year. The very expensive lawyers from Europe and USA were not necessary, since at that time we dint have many international transactions we were handling and if we had such, it would have made a lot of sense to use external local firms who are affiliated to some international firms. These lawyers disagreed with her mode of operation and all the three resigned.

This is after the Bank had spent a lot of money on them. At the same time, the DG single handedly sourced another law firm in the UK called Evershed who she has also used on several assignments over a period of time. So in procuring both the HR consultants and now the London law firm, not proper procurement guidelines were followed. The Bank does not have a lot of business at the moment to warrant the use of such law firms which charge the Bank an hourly fee of USD 520. The lawyers from this firm are sometimes flow into the country and spend at least a month in Kampala. They have to be accommodated in apartments which cost USD 3,000 per month.

The kind of assignments these international lawyers are paid a lot of money to do can surely be done by our lawyers within the region without wasting tax payer’s money. Simple assignment like reviewing tenancy agreements, reviewing term sheets drafting facility agreements for simple transactions should not be given to the London law firm which over time has cost the Bank close to USD 1 million.

We believe that because of her arrogance, she despises lawyers from within the EAC region. We don’t need such a person to continue heading a regional institution. She can argue that the use ot the London law firm is to avoid court cases like the blue line which almost took the Bank down. But remember blue line case was created by her when she was still the Head of legal at the Bank. Because she is extremely rude and arrogant to clients and staff (much as she puts on a different face to the outsider), this ends up getting the bank is legal battles especially with the clients which could have been avoided. Currently there are some loaming court cases which could easily end up like blue line if she continues as the DG at the Bank. Eden international took the Bank to court because of her arrogancy. She refused to meet and discuss amicably with the owner of the project who is also a Judge of the high court in Uganda.

This very simple case could end up badly. Another project (DARI Ltd owned by Hon Raphael Tuju) in Kenya has been mishandled by herself and there are many chances that it will end up in court for a loan of USD 9.197 million. Every body in the Bank advised against this project but she directed that the project should be taken to the board, it was approved and disbursed. However as we speak, it has already gone bad. An internal legal team recruited from the region supported by a panel of regional law firms from each country can sufficiently support the Bank without the need for London or USA based lawyers.

Currently the Bank has another lawyer on full time basis who was hired from London. He has been made idle and yet the Bank continues to pay him a heavy salary and an expatriate allowance. Even if the bank was to use international law firms, this should be on a very short term basis and on a particular transaction and such costs could be shared with the clients.

The manner in which the legal department has been handled is pure abuse of office and power. During the previous board meeting held in March this year, DARI Ltd and Benver Estates both projects from Kenya were supposed to have been on the NPL list. Because she did not want the Board members to ask many questions about DARI since it was only disbursed recently and not even fully. And by including DARI as an NPL, this would have raised the NPL ration above 5% which she did not want. She instead forced and intimidated one of the staff to lie to the board by including another project called Lake Heights in the portfolio report as an NPL when this project was not an NPL since it had been paying its loans normally for the last 7 monthly installment cycles.

Because of this, the staff who was forced to lie to the board by the DG, resigned immediately he returned from the board meeting in protest of this action, among other reasons all related to how he was belittled by the DG in front of the board members. This information can be confirmed by looking at the Bank records and the portfolio report which was presented to the board and the email exchanges between this particular staff and DG, where she pushed for these changes. We believe this is not the first time she is telling lies to the board members.

The Bank excessively uses consultants who are given short term contracts (3 to 6 months) which are always reviewed for up to 3 years and some beyond. These consultants cost the Bank a lot of money and yet they don’t help to build the institution. DG’s strategy is not to build a sustainable team at the Bank but to use short term and very expensive resources to achieve her person targets. Am sure she does not care what happens to the Bank after she leaves. She has painted a rosy picture to the outsiders and yet the Bank is rotten internally. Things could drastically change if a new DG is appointed for the Bank. For a small Bank of about 65 staff members, we have over 10 permanent consultants. Some of these consultants even sign documents and approval payments on behalf of the Bank which is very dangerous.

The Bank has received some grants from some institutions like AfDB and DEG (both shareholders) to build capacity of the Bank. What she has done is to hire very expensive consultants from Europe who come and work on their own and not allowed to interact with any staff members apart from her self.

These consultants have developed products, policies, manuals, risk management systems, however all these are idle. They can not apply because the day to day users were not involved or the consultants did not interact with the staff to ensure what they develop can be used in this environment.

I can say these grants have gone to waste. And yet they are meant to build the capacity of the bank and staff for sustainability. An independent audit needs to be carried out at the Bank but can only be successful when the DG has been interdicted. She threatens staff members not to renew their contracts and in the end staff keep quiet in order not to loose their jobs. However if every one knew that she is out, you can get the truth about the appalling state of the affairs at the Bank. The DG single handedly participates in all international and regional events, workshops, conferences and meeting where the Bank is usually invited. No staff member is ever involved in such travels and events. Even her country managers have not been exposed to international foras including those where a third party is willing to meet the costs. Under normal practice the DG would sometimes travel with her senior managers for exposure and training purposes but this does no happen here.

If an analysis was carried out on the Bank’s travel budget, you would be surprised that 99% of the travel budget for the bank is consumed by the DG alone. Because she never prepares any reports for such travels and neither does she brief any one on her return, the Bank can not effectively benefit from all the money it spends in such travels. Because she travels a lot and she still wants to control the Bank even while away, the Bank always comes to a stand still whenever she travels. We have lost creditability in the market because we delay to close transactions and can not give quick responses because we always have to rely on her availability to approve any responses.

You will realize that over 50% of approvals are made on mail, because she is rarely around. For example she has not stepped at the head office the entire month of May. Payments to service providers and suppliers have been pending. No project work is moving and everything at the Bank has come to a stand still because she is away. We believe that she could either delegate real authority while she is away so that work can continue but this can not happen. Or else she could delegate her senior staff or country managers to represent her at some of these foras but she never does so. Her expensive trips alongside the high budget for her office and her home cost the Bank a lot of money.

Imagine an institution where the DG earns USD 35,000 per month on top of all her personal expenses being catered for by the Bank including at home, with two SUV vehicles at her full time disposal, while the rest of the majority of staff earn below USD 5,000 apart from consultants. She also frequently cancels air ticks in business class which costs the Bank a lot of money. We believe this is abuse and it should be stopped. All these facts can be confirmed. The DG has on several occations picked perdiems from the Bank that she is going to work from the Nairobi office but she never appears at the Bank’s office in Nairobi at all. Since Kenya is her home country, we imagine she spends this bank time and money on her private errands.

On several occasions, the DG has used the Bank cars to go for her private trips in her home village in western Kenya. The use of the Bank vehicle for her personal trips in her home village has happened several times and can be confirmed from records at the Busia board between Kenya and Uganda. The latest occurrence being during the recent Uganda election period where she spent quite alot of time in her village with the office car. This is total abuse of Bank money and assets. The DG spends a lot of time travelling in the name of looking for partners and lines of credits and yet we can’t lend out the funds we have currently from various lenders. We propose the bank cuts down on the many partnerships being negotiated and instead concentrate on the lending business since this is our core business.

Once we have stabilized and grown the book, then we can get into partnerships and look for more lines of credits. Otherwise we are spoiling our name as a bank because the lender and partners we have are starting to realize that what they were told at the time of getting into partnerships was not true. Once we lose them, word will go around and we shall end up failing to get more in feature.

For example, we have hard KfW and AfDB complain about certain things they were told would be put in place and up to now she has not allowed them to be in place. The Bank has a projects committee and country office projects committees. However most decisions from these committees are not respected by her. If she does not like the project or the owner, even if every one else has recommended the project, it will never be funded. And yet in normal institutions, the DG should not be involved in such technical work and decisions.

If she has an interest in a project (Like Dari) however bad it is, she will intimidate every one until the project has been funded. Whoever tried to oppose her, usually have their contracts not renewed. Recently African Development bank had a supervision mission at EADB. This mission talked to some staff and discovered most of the abuse of office and governance weaknesses we have revealed in this petition.

The mission was conducted by Ms. Juliet Byaruhanga (Senior Private Sector Officer based in Kampala) and Mr. Dennis Ansah (Chief Portfolio Manager Officer based in Nigeria). The board should feel free to read their report or directly talk to them. They will confirm much of what is contained in this petition. She does not respect other institutions and their heads both within the region and out side the region. Most CEO’s in the market have complained that she does not give them due respect. Examples include; she never attends most of the EAC secretariat meetings even when invited by the secretary general.

In 2015, FMO indicated to the Bank that they wanted to sell off their shares and exit the Bank. FMO senior officers who were working on the exit plan made several attempts to meet the DG but in vain. They are not happy with the Bank. Some heads of units from KfW head office in German tried to make appointments to meet with her last year but they failed. They are not very happy with the Bank. The Bank is currently hosting the UNFCCC – Regional collaborating centre for East South and central Africa at the Bank Head office in Kampala.

However the DG has refused to meet the UNFCCC bosses who come to the RCC in our Kampala office on several occasions. The UNFCCC team has hosted several high profile seminars and workshops where she is invited to officiate but she never attends. They have invited her to attend some meetings at their head offices or send staff which she never responds to. They don’t respect the bank and they are not happy. Locally in Uganda where the Bank HQ is located, she has ignored severely high level events.

We appreciate that she can not be every where at all times or attend every event, but some are normally very critical for the Bank and she cant even delegate. As a result, we are loosing value in the market and lately, the Bank is not invited to some key events, where a Bank like EADB would add value being a regional bank. The Bank has started loosing visibility, credibility and relevancy both within the financial services market because we are not financing serious projects but also in the eyes of the key stakeholders because of the way the DG behaves. If you talked to some CEO’s of some commercial banks, they will tell you that she is very disrespectful.

At the moment, there are two large syndicates being arranged in the Ugandan market but the lead arrangers for these syndicates and the participating banks don’t want EADB to participate because of how EADB has handled documentation for syndicates in the past, causing lots of delays to concluding these transactions, since the DG wants to manage every step of the process. The Bank’s image in the market has diminished.

Because of the several resignations, some country offices which generate business for the Bank have been left grossly understaffed for some time and yet she does not seem to be interested in filling up some of these positions. For example, Country office Rwanda has one project officer and the country manager, Tanzania has one project officer and the country manager and Uganda also has one project officer and the country manager. We believe there are enough skills within the region to fill these positions. Much as she tells HR that we cant find the right people in the region. She has on several occasions tried to negotiate with staff from the UK but we strongly believe that the Bank does not need staff from the UK or USA.

The region has enough skills which can fill the positions and deliver for the Bank if well motivated, trained and exposed alongside good leadership. Regarding the bank strategy and her ability to get the outside world to think the Bank has greatly inproved, she has kept various versions of the previous strategy and the organization structure. Depending on who she is presenting to, she has always used different versions of the strategy and organization structure. She has told lies at different foras that certain positions within the organization structure are filled, when she is referring to consultants who go away after some time.

The current strategy has been prepared by a consultant from Maxwell stamp London who are very expensive, they don’t have an appreciation of the local operating environment and we believe the draft strategy in place currently will keep in the shelf like the previous strategies. The consultant has worked by himself and the users have no idea what has been prepared, what has informed the strategies, etc. a proper DG would have involved all key staff in the strategy formulation and review process. Of course she has manipulated the outside world including Lenders, the board, rating agencies only because the Bank cleaned the book and was making some profits. But these might not be the case any longer.

Because she has told many lies to the board and other partners, she never wants staff to freely interact with the board and other partners. The same reason she might not want to travel with staff to some international events for fear that staff could easily spill the beans. Staff members have tended to keep quiet in fear of loosing their jobs since the DG has been given excessive powers to determine staff members destiny.

All staff are given two years contract while some after being renewed are given one year. Two years are two few for a staff working in a development bank. A project cycle from admitting a project into the pipeline to approval, to full disbursement and implementation takes about 5 to 10 years. Staff should be given at least a 5years contract to be available during the life of the projects they work on. However the DG reduced the contract tenor as a tool for her to intimidate staff.

Staffs live and work under fear, praying that after two years their contracts should be renewed. At the Bank contract renewal does not depend on performance per say but on what the DG feels about the particular staff. HR does not have any say in contract renewal. Some staff who she is not in good books with normally have their contracts expire and they work for even months before she renews their contracts. If she wants a staff to leave the Bank, she gives short contracts for 2 weeks to 3 months simply to frustrate the staff until they resign.

The 2 years contract affects staff productivity because after one year, most staff spend time looking for other jobs just in case their contract is not renewed. Remember staffs have families to look after and this uncertainty is normally inhuman. On the other hand, most staff normally depend on staff loans from banks for personal development. Coupled with the fact that the Bank does not give staff loans, no commercial banks out there will give staff loans for 2 years, and even when they do, and such a loan can not help any staff to develop.

These are some of the things that motivate staff to work hard. The bank has serious procurement flaws which need urgent attention. The Bank seems to be loosing a lot of money through the single sourcing approach by the DG. We strongly believe costs have been inflated due to lack of proper procedures. The Bank at some point had hired a professional procurement specialist to support guide the Bank to follow procurement guidelines, but he shortly resigned when the DG tried to arm-twist him to circumvent procedures.

We saw a lot of poor quality work and materials used during the Head office building renovations and yet a lot of money was spent. In some areas of the building, certain fittings are already falling apart. We believe there will be serious issues between the Bank and the contractor when finally handing over the building because of quality issues. A serious procurement audit needs to be carried out. In some cases we observe more items were procured that would normally be required for an institution like EADB which uses tax payers money.

A simple example is a well furnished board room with state of art equipment, which is never used. The Bank continues to spend a lot of money holding board meetings in hotels even when the meeting has taken place in Uganda. The building has two restaurants with state of art fitted kitchens, both of which are never used at all and yet staff have to go out of the building to look for lunch even on rainy days. We believe over procurement and single sourcing approach was used as a means to squander bank money.

To give you an example of how staff are mistreated, all staff including senior managers and the Uganda country manager park their cars on the street or at the Imperial Royale parking lot (about half a kilometer from the Bank) whereby staff have to walk to office after parking their cars whether its raining or not. The office parking space is 75% empty and only used by the DG infront of the building at some tenants at the back of the building.

Seriously the Bank’s core business is financing projects and not letting out buildings. Therefore tenants should not be give priority for parking space over staff members who dedicate their time to work for the Bank. I know because the DG does not want to grow the book through lending, and yet she still wants to report some profit, she is sacrificing staff for tenants because she needs that other income from letting out Bank property to supplement the bank profits. This is not the Bank’s core business and therefore staff should be treated with respect.

Another example is the manner in which foreign staff members working in Kampala are treated when it comes to the use of Bank houses in Naguru. The best houses are given to non-bank tenants and the worst houses are left for Bank staff. Recently one of the flats where most of the Bank staff members were staying was renovated. After the renovation and to every one’s surprise, the Bank staff are being asked to pay higher rent of UGX 1.336 million (about USD 400) and non-bank staff members are asked to pay UGX 900,000.

We are surprised why non-bank tenants both at the office and at the flats are favored more than the Bank staff. We believe the rating agencies (Moody’s and Fitch) have been given false information or influenced to give the bank the Baa3 rating. We are very sure, if carried out an independent rating audit without meeting with the DG, the rating would fall considerably because she has not built a sustainable institution. She only cares about what happens while she is around and she will do any thing including bribing to maintain that status quo. Some lenders have started noticing the lies and it will be a matter of time before things get out of hand.

There is nowhere in the world an institution which is being run in this manner can be rated Baa3 unless the rating agency has been influenced which we believe is the case with EADB. The staff and tenants on the building are concerned as to why the DG moves with an armed body guard at all times. The body guard sits infront of her office door at all times. The DG does not allow any other person in the bank lift when she is in it apart from her driver and the body guard.

In fact the lift is locked when she is in it and opened when she is exiting. This paints a very bad picture for a leader of such an institution. If she can not be free with her own staff and tenants at office, then she is not supposed to be leading such an institution. Sometimes the heads of institutions who rent space at the office building are left dismayed as to why a leader of such an institution like EADB could behave in this manner.

Very interesting is that there are some staff members at head office who spend more than two years without ever seeing the DG. The fact that the DG refused to hire heads of departments including head of legal/company secretary (a position she still heads todate) who would also independently record board and governing council meeting minutes, there has been a conflict of interest and sometimes falsification of minutes of the board and governing council meetings to suite her needs.

Much as there is always a minute taker), she decides the final version of the minutes which are circulated to the board by herself. Some of the board decisions are usually altered and because there is no closer monitoring of her activities, such things go on un-noticed. For example, some time back the board approved an update of the Bank IT systems. However the Bank is currently installing new Bank systems for over USD 1 million which have been single sourced by the DG. Similar situations could have happened with the decisions taken regarding renovations of the Bank building.

It is possible that the money spent on renovating the bank building could have built and furnished a new building of the same size. Similarly sourcing of the IT installations (of the magnitude of over USD 1.2 million) going on at the Bank at the moment was single sourced and negotiated by the DG herself without going through the right procurement procedures. This could lead to loss of Bank money. In order to avoid such situations in feature, we believe DG’s should work for one fixed term of 5 years and rotated from different countries of the EAC like it is for the secretary general of the EAC.

The Bank needs some level of regulation by a financial institution regulatory agency. The member states could decide to have the central banks for the different countries supervise some aspects of the bank on a rotational basis annually. The EAC secretariat could play part of this role, but we believe as a financial institution there needs to be proper supervision of the Bank by a financial regulator. It is important for the powers of the DG to be spread, otherwise this actions of impunity will always continue because of the too much powers the chatter gives to the DG.

You will wonder why as staff of the Bank we have taken very long to bring these issues out in such a manner. We believed that most of these issues have been noted and reported at board meetings by the Chief Internal Auditor but we don’t see the board taking any action to propose change of top leadership at the Bank. A detailed audit report was presented to the board at the end of 2014 by the internal auditors highlighting all these issues but things have instead deteriorated.

This is now long over due and if the Bank is to be saved from going back where it was about 7 years ago, some immediate action needs to be taken. We request that the DG is immediately relieved of her duties. One of the country managers can act for a short period and the board and the governing council finds a replacement. Like we mentioned earlier, the Bank has very qualified and skilled staff who simply needs a good leader to drive the Bank business to greater heights. The fact that we have used these means to bring out these issues, we are willing to go all the way to ensure that change takes place in the interest of the Bank and the tax payer’s money.

And therefore if no immediate action is taken, we shall share this information with the international lenders and the class B shareholders and the media. Obviously the heads of state will get to know as well. Please note that we are not holding you at ransom and neither are we threatening you. We just need to save this Bank. The region needs it. We also encourage the board to meet with the staff, and as long as you promise to protect the staff, you will get to the bottom of the issues.

But with the current DG in office, staff may not be willing to come out and give you more details. There is more that we could not put out here. The DG needs to change now. We are aware of when her current contract will expire but by then, things will be irreversible. Its better she steps a side now. There wont be any crisis. The Bank will continue running much as the board might have to put a mechanism where they support whoever will act as a temporary DG until a new and substantive DG is recruited.

The Bank needs stability and growth. These can only be achieved if Vivienne Yeda is out of the Bank. This can be done peacefully by simply asking her to resign. We are also proposing that the Charter should be amended to among other things, stop serving board members to borrow from the Bank. We are aware some board members have borrowed from the Bank. Once a board member has borrowed from the bank, they get compromised and cannot put the DG at task to explain why certain things are done the way they are done, because they feel they owe her and therefore such board members easily lose objectivity.

This might partly explain why things have gone so wrong and the board is aware and yet not action is taken. We have delivered this document to many recipients using hand delivery, email and courier. However we request that who ever receives it first should bring it to the attention of the Bank board chairman (DR. Kamau Thugge – Principle Secretary, The National Treasury, Republic of Kenya) just in case he delays to receive it to enable him initiate action. This petition was initially sent out weeks ago to the board members. However we have not seen any action being taken. We have decided to share with the lenders (KfW, AfDB and EIB.). FMO has also been notified because we have reffered to them in this petition. Should we not here any reaction and a communication from the board to all staff of the Bank on the actions being taken by end of June 2016, we shall escalate to another level). This might hurt the bank but the board will be held responsible since you are aware of what is happening. You might chose to ignore this petition because it has not been signed by any staff member. This does not stop the fact that there is a big problem which needs urgent attention.

September 8, 2016