By Staff Writer
Shocking witness accounts in a Sh1.5billion case filed against Absa bank have emerged at the Mombasa H igh Court.
The bank is battling to clear its name in a case filed by New Mega Africa Limited through Managing Director David Abai New Mega Africa had accused the bank of Sabotaging its business and sharing his account details to third parties against his wishes and the banking regulations.
The company specifically accused the banks Corporate Credit Manager Supporting Business Banking Wycliffe Makori of working with other employees to share his details to third parties who happened to have shown interest in working with New Mega Africa Limited.
Mr Wycliffe Makori is now a witness standing in for the bank issued affidavits in efforts to delink himself from the accusations.
His communication with the third revolved around payments being made by Mombasa cement to Absa on behalf of New Mega Africa. He admits that his relationship with Jared started during his employment at Eco Bank between the years 2011-2015 when Jared was an engineer at KeNHA at that time in the coast region.
“He was my referral person at KeNHA and would offer background checks on several customers that we would finance for KeNHA related works,” he says in the statement.
Makori adds: “The same relationship progressed in Absa Bank where he would confirm invoices and payments of our mutual customers. When the Plaintiff applied for the first loan, Mr Abai introduced me to Engineer Makori whom I coincidentally already knew,”
He says in the statement that Engineer Makori affirmed his commercial interest in New Mega Limited and was the one that facilitated the contract they had with Mombasa Cement. Which is contrary to Eng. Makoris statement where he confirmed no commercial interest.
He observes that New Mega Africa through Abai sent the offer letter for the first loan of Ksh 6million to engineer Makori to review and approve.
His admission that they were sharing and doing background checks for information on mutual customers can be interpreted to mean the two had shared serious information about New Mega Africa which is contrary to the bank policy.
He adds in statement number 20 that when New Mega Africa defaulted on their facilities, he undertook an independent background check on payments from Mombasa cement. “I first called engineer Makori to inquire whether the was a delay in payments from Mombasa Cement which he promised to revert to me after checking with them,”
In August 2021, New Mega requested for the extension of there overdraft facility and this is where the back and forth mind games began as the bank would play delaying tactics despite Abai giving his reasons for the extension.
He got frustrated and requested for a restructure of all his facility to one term loan which was secured by a charger over land, all assets debenture and personal guarantee.
He wanted to amalgamate all his loans and spread them over 36 months. With Makori being the head of the credit , his denial that he rejected the request is contradicted by another admission from him that it’s the business team in charge of loan restructuring that approved it.
In his affidavit he claims that he was not supportive of the restructure as per his court document [note 9]. This is contrary to evidence filed by the bank which indicates that it is Makori who prepared the credit paper and supported for onward approval by one Faith Mutuku.
As per the court documents, while all this was going on, New Mega Africa was shocked to learn that Eng. Makori who also happened to be a friend to Makori had critical information about the company’s operations.
Makori in one of the statements claims New Mega’s account was running into arrears, information which, according to New Mega Africa was also in the hands of third parties.
