PHOTO CAPTION: Former Hino Division national sales and marketing manager Rene Theron who has been promoted to General Manager of the CFAO subsidiary.
There seems to be no near end in sight to the ongoing turmoil at CFAO Motors Kenya, formerly Toyota Kenya.
Despite our relentless coverage of the monstrosities surrounding the troubled company, Managing Director Arvinder Reel and Chief Operations Manager Joshua Anya continue to run the multinational car dealership like a personal kiosk.
As reported in our previous publications, this ridiculous ‘Big Man’ syndrome has led to a mass exodus of key executives who cited high levels of toxicity.
Brain Drain Galore As Key Staff Exit CFAO Motors Amid Company Turmoil
One after the other, staff who devotedly served for many years have been bolting out to competitor firms in search of greener pastures.
In the span of just a few weeks, Sylvia Agani, formerly the Nanyuki Branch Manager, resigned and joined Scania Kenya.
David Muraguri, a Parts Supervisor at Central Parts Store left for Isuzu Kenya.
The former General Manager of Loxea Limited, also under the CFAO group, Mr Andrew Omollo found a new home at Urysia Limited.
Most recently, they lost one of their most experienced and respected professionals, Mr Omar Osogo, who honourably left his role as General Manager at Hino Motors Limited, a subsidiary of the CFAO Group.
Mr Osogo downed his tools in protest of mistreatment from Arvinder and high-handedness from Joshua Anya who was allegedly coercing him into sacking staff from the Hino department on flimsy grounds.
Our sources now inform us that it only took a few days for CFAO Boss Arvinder Reel to find a shoddy replacement for Mr Osogo – a man that is bound to go down in history as one of the most highly influential figures at the company.
To the Asian bully, Osogo’s departure provided a perfect opportunity to elevate yet another one of his incompetent cronies.
This time around, the spinning roulette fell on Rene Theron – a South African Boer whose only qualification is a birth certificate and blind loyalty to his boss.
Sources say that Mr Theron earns about Sh1.3m every month, with a house allowance of Sh300,000 for his mansion in Karen.
This is quite unfair, considering his predecessor barely made more than Sh200k every year.
A few weeks ago, the CFAO Group Board summoned Mr Arvinder to explain the reason behind recent high-profile exits which have dealt a major blow to the once reputable firm.
During his interrogation by the Board, Mr Arvinder was issued a stern caution to shape up his management ways, failure to which further action would be exercised.
The probing left Mr Arvinder Reel so shaken that during his next meeting with staff, he was literally pleading with them not to leave.
As per numerous accounts from the remaining employees, the rogue boss has since toned down on his constant bullying and promised to work on reuniting the remaining workers.
This marked the culmination of our series of articles unearthing the dirty mess at CFAO Motors (formerly Toyota Kenya) which began with an explosive e-mail where staff raised a list of grievances that they asked to be immediately addressed in order to mitigate the growingly toxic working environment at the company.
The complaints ranged from mistreatment, nepotism, tribalism, exclusion, stifled career growth and constant intimidation.
Guided by submissions anonymously presented by disgruntled employees, the CFAO Group launched an internal investigation into the corrupt and rogue senior administration.
The inquiry into the organization’s internal operations sought to extensively probe the allegations with the aim of taking appropriate legal action against all implicated parties.
For the entire month of April 2022, a panic-gripped Mr Arvinder Reel was often seen profusely sweating in his office upon the realization that CFAO executives are not only looking into claims of staff mistreatment but also embezzlement of funds and gross misconduct.
One of the items that raised eyebrows among the top hierarchy included the construction of the Sh500m CFAO showroom in Kisumu where a huge chunk of the project money is suspected to have gone into people’s pockets.
It is alleged that some of the building works have been granted to a company closely linked to a member of Mr Arvinder Reel’s wealthy family.
Sadly, as expected, the probe left Mr Reel and his accomplices unscathed.
We hope that this time around, the board’s probe will finally pin down some perpetrators.
As our series of unearthing dirt at CFAO Motors proceeds, we encourage more employees at the company to fearlessly come out and unearth deeper details of what is happening at their workplace.
This, we hope, will help trigger action from relevant authorities who are rumoured to be already pocketed by the suspects.
Their mouths are too full to speak, but ours are not.
We shall be keenly following this developing story with a view to publishing subsequent updates on how things pan out at the company.
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