There’s an emerging and ongoing scandals at Dimension Data.
The South Africa-originated firm led by Richard Hechle is alleged to be engaging in insider trading, economic crimes, conflict of interest and contravention of the FCP Act.
The players
Mr Hechle, is the current Managing Director (MD) for East and West Africa. He previously managed Internet Solutions (IS) East Africa before the merger with Data Dimension (DD).
Prior to joining IS, he spent 25 years in the Horticulture industry. He is a second generation Kenyan and dual British passport holder.
The other players are Jonathan and David Somen. They are previous shareholders and Executive Manager and Commercial Director respectively, of Access Kenya Ltd, which was later acquired by Dimension Data and rebranded to Internet Solutions (IS).
Jonathan Somen was instrumental in the appointment of Mr Hechle a career Horticulturalist over the more qualified Kris Senanu, who now served as the Deputy MD.
Senanu ended up quitting and joined Telkom Kenya and recently EBU Chief at Safaricom.
Jonathan is a rally driver, navigated by Richard Hechle and in addition runs an IT firm Eldama Technologies. Uses his proximity, insider knowledge and board positions he sits on (NCBA, Gertrude’s etc.) to confer himself preferential business. It is suspected that Richard Hechle is a “silent partner” in Eldama.
Finally, Sammy Okech and Peter Ndirangu, the current and previous CFOs respectively.
This is the office under which procurement and payments reside.
Eldama Technologies is not only retained to supply equipment at 3x market rate but regularly paid upfront, even where direct sourcing from Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) would not only be cheaper but also attract credit terms.
The FCP Act is a a U.S. statute that prohibits firms and individuals from paying bribes to foreign officials to further business) and SoX compliance (In 2002, the United States Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) to protect shareholders and the general public from accounting errors and fraudulent practices in enterprises, and to improve the accuracy of corporate disclosures) : Listed in New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and London Stock Exchange (LSE)
Human Resources
The normalization of illegal activates has meant that illicit relationship has cropped in the company to the point that a mere receptionist believes that she is bigger than the HR managers.
Hello Cyprian I am working at dimension data limited. My cry is we have been suffering alot because of our political stand mostly those who voted for kenya kwanza side “Ruto Gachagua ticket”.
There’s one receptionist at the fourth floor by name Alice she is acting as HR because of her deep ties with top senior HR. She is harassing and reporting every petty issue to top HR or head department without consulting.
Last week she reported CCOs,security guards. Cleaners are always on the spot. Many junior employees are exiting from in mass exodus not because of delayed salary but because of much supervision and many phone calls as early as 5:45am in the morning.
She also reports her staff colleagues to their seniors without informing them on the matter. “yaani tumechoka na huyu receptionist ” She has skipped her two leaves in order to monitor junior employees.
