Wednesday, May 21, 2025 - Equity Bank recently dismissed nearly 200 employees in one of the biggest internal purges in its history, following a Ksh 1.5 billion payroll fraud involving insiders.
An internal audit revealed that staff across the country had
received unexplained funds through their salary accounts and registered M-Pesa
numbers, linked to customers, bank-related entities, or fellow employees, which
is a direct violation of the bank’s conflict of interest and ethics policy.
The audit, which began on April 14, 2025, demanded written
explanations for any income above salary received in the last two years.
Employees who failed to account for the suspicious
transactions were issued termination letters, citing gross misconduct.
The sacked workers include managers and junior staff from
both head office and branches.
The scandal was triggered by a massive heist where IT
credentials belonging to a senior staff member were used to process over 40
fraudulent transactions totalling Ksh 1.5 billion. The money was later traced
to external bank accounts.
However, even as the bank presents this as a necessary
integrity clean-up, this outlet has received multiple concerns from some of the
affected employees.
According to several dismissed workers, not all terminations
were fairly executed.
Some claim that the audit process was overly aggressive and
too narrowly focused, resulting in what they describe as dismissals over
trivial or poorly substantiated grounds.
There is a growing sense among some of the ex-staff that the
sweep may have lumped together serious offenders with individuals whose actions
didn’t merit termination.
Equity Bank maintains that the purge was not a redundancy
plan but a risk and ethics enforcement measure, as it works to rebuild trust
and tighten internal controls.
Credit: Cyprian
Nyakundi
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