The revelations of wrong doing relating to one of the oldest Companies in the country, Cooper Motor Corporation Ltd (CMC) raises interesting issues relating to corporate governance.
The alleged backdoor and boardroom manipulations, if true, must disclose criminal intent at the top-level management and the publicly quoted entity must answer not only to the shareholders but the country generally.
In a very old case, a judge had this to say on corporate criminal responsibility:
"Corporate bodies are more corrupt and profligate than individuals, because they have more power to do mischief, and are less amenable to disgrace or punishment. They neither feel shame, remorse, gratitude nor goodwill".
History of corporate collapse in Kenya discloses that it is the public and innocent shareholders, depositors, and tax payers who lose their hard earned wealth whilst the culprits of criminal mismanagement go scot-free.
Remember Trust Bank, Trade Bank, Kenya Finance Corporation, Reliance Bank, Kenyatta National Hospital, NSSF, NHIF, Kenya Pipeline Company Uchumi Ltd?
No convictions have ever followed, and the attempts to bring to court the perpetuators of massive frauds have been feeble, disjointed and lacking in expertise.
It is a well known fact that expatriates are paid two salaries, one taxed locally, others couched in foreign exchange accounts in the tax haven areas such as the Jersey Islands.
Shareholders should have an vested interest activism association. These dirty old men should be lynched or driven out of town. They are too evil to reform.
By inference, the man is all that Mr Phantom is not: an untrustworthy radical, divisive, too many enemies, a dictator, and a persistent liar...Gaitho dialogues.