An open letter to the KENOL KOBIL Managing Director, David Ohana, by enraged Kenyan Employees!
David Ohana, Group Managing Director, KenolKobil
Dear David Ohana,
Before we are employees, first we are human beings -human beings of Kenya citizenry, and you a foreigner. We wonder how you have managed to stay around for this long, having defiled us, caused us mental anguish, stress, job loss and violated our rights. You are a racist who cares less for the well fare of the employees, much less the suppliers, station dealers, transporters, the government and families of the affected. You are on record openly discriminating employees from the Kikuyu tribe. You have arbitrarily sacked them or have them resign under duress, branding them all thieves. No wonder you are not employing any Kikuyu these days. This is not just about employees; it’s about us the citizens of a free country. You claim you are the smart one and everyone else no nothing (we are fools). You’ve become the tea girl, the watchman, the accountant, the salesman, the engineer, I mean everything – you have never appreciated the input of any employee. No wonder you pay yourself Kshs.13mil a month, no pay increase for employees and an intern Kshs.15k – when the company is reporting Ksh.2bil net profit.
Employees and Organization
In the meeting held in Radisson Blue on 22nd September, you promised the employees to cause them more pain – more pain than ever before and you are not going to stop. You promised to continue harassing them and raising hell upon them for no reason at all. The fear mongering, scare mongering, hating, discrimination, harassment, bullying, intrusion of their private lives, violations of rights has gone overboard. It is too much and illegal for that matter. You have no right to cause any pain and mental harm to anybody.
Of late, you and your cohorts (accomplices) are forcing the employees to print and reveal their MPESA statements online – information that is very private. If an employee refuses, you call the police on them to humiliate and frustrate them. Thereafter, you all go laughing because its amusement to you. You randomly select employees that are in your ‘bad list’ and have them resign under duress. You are taking away employee benefits so that many resign – why are you forgetting that we have put time investment and commitment into this company and that it is we who have brought the company this far? Why are you forgetting that all our stakes are on our careers we’ve built in this company – our health, children, homes and families? Why are you destroying careers and families? With all arrogance you said you do not care what happens to anyone in that meeting.
There are no structures in the organization – no HR practitioner, no management just a one man show! The company is without leadership and is a rudderless ship in the open seas, drifting with the waves. Everything goes your way and nothing is done without your approval – you are simply a fascist!
Government and Stakeholders
Not once have you said that the Kenyan government is a drunken government, which does not know what it’s doing. Borrowing too much and doing nothing. You are very critical of the government – critiquing their lack of understanding of the oil operations in Turkana, critiquing their knowledge of the oil industry, infrastructure and regulations and how they are ‘lazy’, ‘bustardizing’ the government officials and ministries such as Ministry of Energy and their departments – KPC, KPRL, ERC. You have no respect whatsoever for the government and the people that play host to you.
You are very explosive in industry stakeholders meetings. Always combative to suggest that you are always right and everything has to go your way. You rubbish everyone’s ideas – you are a bigot!
Station Dealers
You are on record saying that all your station dealers are very poor. Always crying for assistance and cannot raise enough capital for their business. What you often forget is that it is these dealers who keep us in business. The dealers are always frustrated by your thoughtless decisions you keep making every day.
They pay for orders which are delayed to be booked and supplied. You do not want them to be supplied when it comes to mid-month price changes by ERC because you say that you are making them rich. You debit them fictitious amounts and threaten to take away the stations if they do not toe the line. When a dealer gives back a station, you go ahead and frustrate them – you don’t refund their deposit they put, and if you do then it’s done piecemeal. Some go for years without getting their full down payment and give up. You are not human at all. Many of the dealers are suffering in silence.
Transporters
You have not spared the transporters either. You have lowered their rates below the market rate and are not making any business. If a transporter makes a complaint you threaten to withdraw their services. You refuse to pay the transporters on time – debiting them fictitious amount arbitrarily without reason. You suspend their operations discriminately and they go without business for weeks. You keep saying that you will not make them rich and so you deduct their invoices and go up to 3 months without paying them. You have often referred to them as leeches, always sucking from the company.
Lawyers
You have constantly referred to the Kenyan lawyers as ‘prostitutes’. Always wanting money and no services rendered. What a shame! You say that they only know how to ask for money and that they are all quacks. You have made many employees who were lawyers in the company to leave for fear of more embarrassment. Even a company director who was a company lawyer for long time resigned years ago because of the constant humiliation you put him through in staff meetings and parties. You do not have limits truly.
Suppliers
Our suppliers are no different. You refuse to settle their invoices in time. You make all the noise you can so that they get afraid to approach you to settle their payments. They go up to a year to have full settlement of their invoices.
Citizens of this Country
You are full of insults and hull expletives to both employees and ordinary mwananchi. You have no boundaries. You have branded Kenyans wholly as thieves and not fit to be managers. You have gone on a recruiting spree for so-called expatriates robbing qualified Kenyans of much needed jobs and income. You are arbitrarily sacking good committed employees robbing them of their future, wrecking their health and families. You have said that you are the smartest army man around and that you will deal with everybody – the dealers, transporters, government officials, government departments and employees.
You have become a rogue Managing Director who has gone berserk. You are a general who has turned to eat his own soldiers – and the soldiers no longer have confidence in you.
It cannot be that everyone in Kenya is wrong and you are only right! You must be one special human being.
Nobody wants you here – you’ve violated the rights of the citizens of this country and breached their trust. You cannot purport to claim to be the clean one while all you speak and practice is vile and toxic.
If this is what Israel has to offer as an ambassador of its citizens then it’s a shame.
The Board and Shareholder
If you Ohana do not leave and the board and the company’s shareholder retain you then I make this passionate plea to the citizens of this country; to humbly boycott all products of KenolKobil – fuels, LPG, K-card, lubes. It cannot be the people from whom you feed from are the ones you openly look down upon, discriminate, hate, defile, and insult and violate.
We make a passionate cry to the citizens of this country to come to the aid of their fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. Let us come all and chase this demon of a human being away from our lands.
What is the worth of one rogue foreigner to the worth and wellbeing of a citizenry?
More to come
David Ohana and his cohorts MUST GO!
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