More than 300 former employees of Tata Chemicals, and who exited the company through retirement, retrenchment and termination are up in arms lamenting deliberate delay by the company’s board of trustees to release their reserve funds allocation.
According to the ex-workers, their attempts to finally get their dues have all been futile since November 2023 where they claim to have been on an unfruitful attempts in following up on the matter writing letters to the Funds Secretary to have the board of trustee approve the allocation of KSHS 209 Million to no avail.
After their plea could not be met, the ex-employees pursued other avenues where they engaged Retirement Benefits Authority which according to the members, in May 2024 RBA carried a joint on site audit inspection on fund’s accounts and administration.
“The audit unearthed a previously unexplained reserve fund figure of Kshs. 209m, stashed within the fund’s books of accounts. The Authority thereafter ordered the Trustees to prepare the reserve fund distribution list of all members by July 2024 but this order was equally ignored by Trustees as evidenced during the Fund’s AGM on July where the list produced by the Fund administrators for perusal and approval was ignored,” one of the members expressed their frustration
The members say that even after persistent follow up on the Funds allocation, and orders from RBA to work on the allocation and distribution of the funds, the beneficiaries have complained that the Board of trustees have requested for long timelines that they do not wish to honour despite RBA ordering for the reserve Fund distribution list by End of July
“As currently constituted, the BOT has enough capacity to peruse and approve the Zamara’s document (funds administrators list) in less than a week but they wouldn’t do that because of character and personal selfish interest. As complainants we have dutifully and patiently adhered to the Law by exhaustively following the due process with the RBA. We have however spotted red flags based on characters exhibited by some Trustees,” another member explained
The members have expressed fear of a foul play after they learnt that the Board of trustee is planning to change the Funds administrator to a friendlier fund trustee administrator.
“The timing and motive by Trustees to migrate the entire fund administration from Zamara to Enwealth fund administrators is equally suspect, if not to hide and cover up some crucial documents during the migration,” another beneficiary expressed their fears.
In a member education meeting held in Magadi, trust chairman Wilson Lusalenge failed to commit himself on when the differed/exited members will access their portion of reserve fund in their accounts.
