Nairobi House help locks up pregnant boss over Sh5,000 ‘delayed’ salary

A woman claimed to have spent the better part of Tuesday in police custody after her house help conspired to have her locked up for delaying her pay. The 24-year-old domestic worker is claimed to have used her connections with the police in Ruai to have her employer, Milka Njiru, in custody until she paid the dues.

This is despite the two having signed an agreement seen by The Metropolitan that stipulated that Christine Awino Kuke would be paid on the sixth of every month.

However, according to by Ms Njiru, Christine demanded her pay on July 31 and said she was ‘no longer interested in working as a maid’.

And when she was told she had to wait, she is said to have colluded with the police to have Ms Njiru arrested at her place of work.

No statement

“I did not write a statement. Nothing. I was just locked up in the crime office. The police insisted that I give her what she is owed,” she told The Metropolitan at her home in Ruai.

Police, however, denied Ms Njiru spent the day in their cells. There were also no records in the Occurrence Book to show she was arrested and booked as is the procedure.

The senior officers at KBC Police Station, who refused to have their photos taken or be on record, argued that Ms Njiru’s was a civil case and “they saw no need to have it recorded”.

The genesis of the feud between the two is said to have started on Sunday evening when the worker failed to return home on time from church, showing up at 8pm.

“My wife asked where she had been, but her response was that she wanted to go home. We advised her to spend the night then travel the following day,” explained Ms Njiru’s husband, James Wachira.

The arrest

When they did not pay her the following day, Wachira said at least five officers descended on their businesses (a shop and a food outlet) and arrested his wife.

“They said we had not been paying her and demanded we pay her immediately,” said Wachira.

Between her time of arrest at 11am and 7pm when she was released, Wachira said he received numerous phone calls threatening him that his wife would rot in the cells.

One of the callers identified himself as the help’s brother-in-law working with the Department of Criminal Investigation in Nairobi.

“We did not refuse to pay, but she breached the contract,” said Ms Njiru.

When The Metropolitan contacted the help, she became hostile and refused to respond to the claims.

Follow-up phone calls went unanswered.

Christine’s remuneration was set at Sh5,000, far below the minimum wage of Sh13,475.

But Njiru said that is the much he could afford.

According to the police, the help is said to have reported that she was chased away, a claim that the employer denied.

Wachira said he had to cough Sh4,500 to give the help after she refused an earlier offer of Sh1,500 as her transport home.