Safaricom has failed to compensate Michael Karanja, against a court order. The Employment and Labour Relations Court, in May ordered the rogue telco to pay Mr Karanja Sh2.4 million for wrongful dismissal five years ago. According to court documents, Mr Karanja, who was a fraud investigations officer, was handed a letter of summary dismissal in May 2017 accused of conflict of interest dealings involving Safaricom M-Pesa agents.
“The respondent’s (Safaricom) letter of summary dismissal dated 31 May 2017 states that investigations had established that the claimant failed to follow the M-Pesa agent penalty guidelines in freezing and unfreezing of accounts and assisted a third party in irregular M-Pesa tills, of which he received funds contrary to the Safaricom Risk Management Code of Ethics,” the documents said.
Mr Karanja was also accused of regularly accessing customer and agent accounts against procedures and sharing the information with a third party in contravention of Safaricom policies and customer confidentiality. Peter Ndegwa, CEO, Safaricom Plc
In his ruling, however, Judge Jacob Gakeri said Safaricom did not ensure Mr Karanja received a notice inviting him to a disciplinary hearing, and that the telco failed to present the results of the investigation against him. “Evidently, the respondent may have had good reason to terminate or dismiss the claimant but did not pursue the process to its logical conclusion,” he said.
Mr Karanja had sought Sh6.2 million including Sh347,000 one month’s salary in lieu of notice, Sh4.1 million for 12 months’ gross salary for unfair dismissal, Sh1 million annual bonus and Sh694,000 for leave not taken.
The Employment and Labour Relations Court, however, declined to award Michael Karanja the total amount of Sh6.7 million he sought as compensation.
In its 2020-2021 Financial Year (FY) Sustainable Business Report, Safaricom dismissed 28 employees for fraud. This was a 75 per cent increase from the previous year.
The rogue telco dismissed 24 staff for fraud-related crimes in the 2021 – 2022 FY, Sustainable Business Report.
10 of the 24 were sacked due to Sim-Swap fraud, up from 4 in the previous year.