The late Imperial Bank boss paid for a six-day retreat for a former Central Bank of Kenya manager and his wife to Bangkok, court documents show.

Exhibits filed by shareholders of the troubled bank in court in an attempt to link CBK employees to the mess at the lender, suggest the wife of the former manager requested that Abdulmalek Janmohamed pay for the return trip.

“Please inform Mr Janmohamed that we shall be staying at Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit Hotel from 21st to 24th. The organisers of the conference have kindly agreed to drive us to the resort. The only assistance we now need is on the return trip on 29th August,” the wife wrote in an email to the Janmohamed’s personal assistant.

The email is dated August 3, 2011.

Shareholders have been digging through records at the bank and have so far filed copies of email correspondence, share certificates and minutes among other documents that attempt to explain how their trusted managing director ran a parallel bank at Imperial Bank. They also want to show how he conspired with some of the bank’s employees and auditors, and paid off some CBK employees to look the other ways as they robbed the lender. 

The fresh revelations could dent the image of the CBK, which is expected to act as an impartial party to the scam that saw Imperial Bank lose Sh38 billion over 13 years.

Key Talent

The shareholders show that Mr Janmohamed went ahead to authorise Chiva-Som International Health Resort to charge his credit card for the six-day stay at the hotel.

“It has come to my knowledge that the Central Bank of Kenya has, during the period when the bank was operational, had a more than arm’s-length relationship with the bank [sic], as shown in emails ... in which the spouse of a senior bank official enjoyed the largesse of the bank’s Group Managing Director Abdulmalek Janmohamed (now deceased),” Anwar Hajee, an Imperial Bank shareholder, swears in his new affidavit.

He claims the offers were undertaken with a view to obscuring certain matters.

Mr Hajee, who is representing other shareholders of the bank, had earlier provided email correspondence between James Kaburu, the then chief finance officer (CFO) of the bank, and a Mr Reuben Cheres, a manager at CBK, that suggests how a cover-up that led to the cooking of the bank’s books was managed.

In the email, Mr Kaburu asks Mr Cheres to delete some names from a list of the bank’s top 50 borrowers.

“The highlighted in purple are the ones to be deleted. Classification of Automotive Solutions should change from doubtful to watch. Please send me the amended copy,” the email to Cheres reads. It was drafted on October 24, 2014.

It is not clear why the names were to be deleted, but managers of the bank who were in on the scam are accused of having three different lists of top borrowers: one for the board of the company, one for the CBK and the correct list, which had loans that were given unprocedurally.

CBK has refused to comment on this matter.

The new suit also claims that Diamond Trust Bank (DTB) is poaching key talent from Imperial Bank, which would complicate recovery efforts.

Imperial Bank employees became vulnerable hunting ground for key talent among top banks in Kenya after it was placed under receivership.

The poaching has opened a new battlefront for the lender and the market regulator after Imperial Bank shareholders rushed to court with a fresh affidavit seeking to block the exercise.

“Circa forty members of the bank’s staff based in the Nairobi branches and circa fifteen based in Mombasa have so far been called for interviews by the first interested party (Diamond Trust Bank), with many progressing to the final round and the mandatory pre-appointment medical check-up,” Hajee says.

“The core of the bank’s credit team (five members) has been poached by the first interested party,” the affidavit reads.

Hajee claims that DTB’s head of operations and projects had called two senior members of Imperial, seeking references for staff currently being interviewed. He claims that managing directors of both KCB and DTB have had various meetings at Imperial Bank headquarters.

This comes at a time when the owners of Imperial Bank have accused the regulator of handing its client book to competitors, putting them at risk.