Family of guard shot dead demand compensation from employer

Police officers have been called in at Hatari security office. [Wilberforce Okwiri/Standard] When he last spoke to his father, Fred Wanyonyi, the security guard who was shot dead at Stima Plaza during the June 25 protests, promised his dad that he would buy him a piece of land this month. But in a cruel twist, 65-year-old Robert Kwambo has been left mourning the abrupt death of his son. It is believed the killer shot was fired by one of the police officers deployed to quell the demonstrations. "My son had promised to buy me a piece of land this July, and construct for me a small house, but here I am...left stranded. They brought me a corpse in July instead," mourned Kwambo on Thursday. The old man was among family members who turned up at Hatari Security Services' offices in Nairobi's Westlands to seek an audience with the firm that had employed their kin. Wanyonyi was to be buried on July 12 at their Tabani village, Kiminini of Bungoma County, but the interment was cancelled at the last minute. According to the family, they stopped the burial to seek a fresh audience with Wanyonyi's employer. Kwambo said it would have been a mistake to bury his son without seeking clarity from Hatari Security regarding his son's terminal dues and compensation. On Wednesday, Kwambo, his other son Anthony Simiyu, Wanyonyi's wife Marceline Atieno Kesa and a host of relatives, accompanied by Kenya National Private Security Workers' Union (KNPSWU) officials, returned to Westlands to demand an audience with the management of Hatari Security. Initially, the management had refused to talk to the group until when the local security committee team, led by the Assistant County Commissioner, arrived following growing tension outside the Hatari offices along Rapta Road. Representatives from the family and KNPSWU, accompanied by the security committee, went into a closed-door meeting with management, which agreed to release Wanyonyi's terminal dues and compensation money. "We have held talks and the management has promised to pay his terminal dues as well as compensate for death at work. I think it was just a misunderstanding because the firm has also pledged to cater for transport and coffin costs that had already been offset," said Joash Soita, KNPSWU's National Organising Secretary. Before being granted audience, the union accused Hatari Security of neglecting and mistreating workers, underpaying them, besides subjecting them to long working hours without compensation. The union's Secretary General, Isaac Andabwa, claimed most security firms were not remitting statutory deductions from security guards, as well as being reluctant to implement the minimum wage set by the government. "Hatari Security is among those companies we want the Private Security Regulatory Authority to deregister for non-compliance with laid down regulations, which we have been fighting for since 2017," said Andabwa. Despite a senior manager promising they would talk to journalists, follow-up inquiries at the main gate bore no fruits, with guards at the sentry maintaining they were under firm instructions not to allow in the media. Wanyonyi, 29, had worked at the company for nine years, starting in Nakuru, then to Kisumu, before being transferred to Nairobi, where he had stayed for about nine months. Recounting the fateful day he died, his wife, Atieno, said her husband was the sole breadwinner who died at a prime age. "He left the house at around 4:20 am, and at around noon, he called to inform me that from where he was, the demonstrations had intensified. He told me he was on the top of the building where he works, and that was the last call," said the mother of three. She would later receive a call that broke the sad news that Wanyonyi had been shot. According to the 29-year-old widow, her husband died after being shot in the stomach. "When I arrived at 4 pm, he was still lying at the scene; we took him to Mama Lucy Hospital, where they declined to receive him since he was already dead. We stayed there until 4 am when police arrived, taking the body to City Mortuary," recalled Atieno.

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