Under-siege! These are indeed the last days of Bob Collymore as CEO of Safaricom. And we are here to oversee and throw the biggest eviction bash in Kenya. We welcome all victims of Bob Collymore’s corruption and cronyism to turn up and support this project.
For long, we have complained about the calibre of advertisements in Kenya, and directly correlated this to the incompetence at ScanGroup, the company that is single-handedly run by Bharat Thakrar who other than complaining about his Range Rover to the dealership company to earn cheap points on social-media, is really just another empty-headed CEO who reasons like a Standard Two student, or worse still, a Daystar University Journalism graduate.
You will all remember that tweets celebrating the sham marriage between Bob Collymore and Wambui Kamiru first emanated from Bharat Thakrar’s twitter handle, meaning that beyond the work arena, these individuals are partners in crime. We know that Bharat Thakrar gives commissions to Bob Collymore and other senior staffer at Safaricom Kenya Limited in-order to keep his deficient contract operational.
The mediocrity in Kenya’s corporate sector has been severally captured on this website, and we have for long cried on the anemia of fresh new and intellectual adverts or marketing concepts. This is because to work in a corporate like ScanGroup, you either have to sleep with someone or bribe your way inside. We have also mentioned the cartel between George Lutta the media buyer at ScanGroup and TV stations, who only sponsor the most mediocre content in-order to keep their commissions running.
Bob Collymore has then gone ahead to use the purse-strings of this PUBLIC company like personal property. He only sponsors Jazz music because being from Guyana islands, his type of music must also be everyone else’s preference. Because his Kikuyu wife loves art, Safaricom must also sponsor art. Can we have a PUBLIC company operating at the whims of senior officials for personal gain?
We have also mentioned a company called Mo-Sound previously, and the mediocre concerts they televise whilst managing the Safaricom tour without any regards for merit, and only rewarding sycophancy. Bob Collymore simply picked up from where the thief and Mr. 10% Michael Joseph left off, the other South African idiot who sponsored a marathon in a national part simply because he liked wildlife, not because Kenyans wanted to be part of it.
Beyond the nonsense and dumbfoolery that these corporate cartels have treated Kenyans to, denying worthy and meritorious candidates chances to work with them, refusing to sponsor mainstream initiatives like football, rugby and instead sticking to niche events like Jazz and Art simply because Bob Collymore has a personal vested interest, these corrupt mongrels have shown us that they are no different from the MPigs in Parliament.
For instance to sponsor football, Safaricom only exclusively deals with individuals linked to Ligi Ndogo, who then are connected to senior Safaricom staffers who split deals and cuts with them. Safaricom cannot be engaged in any activity if the senior officials are not getting a commission, a culture that was inculcated by Michael Joseph and Peter Arina, with Bob Collymore and his pathetic senior officials perfecting it.
Caption: ScanGroup CEO Bharat Thakrar who has overseen his company delivering the most mediocre marketing concepts simply because he can get away with it.
Coincidentally, Scanad/Scangroup has been behind cleansing campaigns for nearly all companies that have collapsed or are engaged in fraudulent activities like Kenya Airways and National Bank of Kenya. You will all recall a Scangroup employee who masquerades as @iwateba launching the #Munirisclean hashtag to cleanse the man who together with Mohammed Hassan have looted Kshs. 30 Billion from National Bank.
ScanGroup has also planted amorphous characters on social media to taunt hustlers and achievers, in a bid to push the brands they work for and stifle dissent or negative feedback about their childish adverts. One such character is the homosexual @MediaMK who was said to have been employed purely due to his sexual orientation and not because he can deliver good concepts that can help elevate real talent out there.
ScanGroup has also enlisted tier-3 sycophants on social media whose work is to retweet anything dispatched by the characters we mentioned above. These are basically low-lifes who live off freebies, merchandise and tickets to events that ScanGroup oversees. As long as this chain of idlers is fed with freebies, they will spend all day retweeting and doing subliminal campaigns for corporates, using inferior or copied concepts.
Not that Kenya has no talent or creative individuals who can execute flawless marketing campaigns, not that Safaricom can sponsor events with a wide reach and exponential benefit to both its shareholders and ordinary Kenyans, but in corporate Nairobi, merit is the last consideration. Only shameless self-promoters get noticed, meaning that the rot in media and advertising is endemic and spreading its tentacles in other facets of the economy.
Going to the KPMG report that has highlighted corruption at Safaricom as overseen by none other than the fake accented immigrant from Guyana, it seems that Scanad was awarded its contract illegally. Scanad was contractually required to deliver 76 resources to Safaricom, on a monthly basis as justification for their high monthly retainer.
But instead of Bharat Thakrar employing serious personnel like Cyprian Nyakundi whose capacity to influence the public in both exciting and innovative ways, Bharat Thankrar only employs those he wants to pay peanuts and then they kiss his ass. He really wants to maximise on his costs and earn money without delivering on his targets. How many other Cyprian Nyakundi’s are out there? Does this Indian thief Bharat Thakrar head-hunt exceptional marketing talent in Kenya? Ofcourse not. He’s been operating in a comfort zone. And right now the comfort zone is being challenged.
The report indicates that Safaricom sent out Request for Proposals (RFP) on 19th December 2013 and closed on 23rd January 2014. Amongst the companies who submitted bids included RedHouse Group, Nurturn Bates, Express DDBO, Transcend Media, Scanad Kenya and J. Walter Thompson Kenya Limited.
Although Transcend Media was ranked first during the technical and commercial analysis, Bob Collymore influenced that Scanad was finally appointed because he had agreed to split bribes with Bharat Thakrar. In the same informal agreement, Bob Collymore turns a blind eye to Scanad’s obvious incompetence, mediocre marketing concepts and failure to deliver on schedule leading to overall inefficiency in Safaricom.
Transcend media has severally complained to Vodafone International about the corruption in Safaricom as overseen by Bob Collymore, and it was this and other reports of fraud against senior staff at Safaricom that precipitated the KPMG external audit. It was not commissioned by Bob Collymore as he claimed in a press conference last Saturday.
Incompetent staffers in Safaricom include Adrine Muhura the senior brand manager informed KPMG that the mediocre concepts are presented to Scanad and once approved are processed internally. Safaricom don’t bother evaluating the number of resources or staffers in any project. All they just ask for is projects to be delivered, however mediocre.
Safaricom witheld a lot of information from the external auditors and the firm was only able to evaluate Scanad’s output in the months of August, September and October 2015 and discovered that in just those three months, Scanad delivered late on ten (10) occassions, but only accepted to be penalized on one.
You will all not believe but Scanad was paid a whopping Kshs. 2.1 Billion by Safaricom to execute the mediocrity we see on their inferior advertising concepts, money that can be well spent if Safaricom built the internal capacity to work with geniuses in Kenya, or monitored Scanad which they don’t do.
Kenya can’t hold big concerts with top artists, can’t host international tournaments with big teams and can’t grow its concepts industry because the biggest spender in advertising numbers has employed staffers with overlapping conflicts of interests and opted to benefit from any and every deal that the company undertakes. Wasn’t it strange for a service provider like Bharat Thakrar to attend Bob Collymore’s sham wedding? Wasn’t that an outright conflict of interest.
Caption: Bharat Thakrar and his wife attended Bob Collymore’s sham wedding. Shouldn’t be declared a conflict of interest for service providers to mingle in close proximity like this? Isn’t the reason why Collymore has been lenient to ScanGroup when it delivers behind schedule and mediocre marketing concepts?
Using this kitty, Scangroup has been able to infiltrate nearly every media house meaning that this is the only place where you can get this information. Because Kenyan mainstream media houses are overly dependent on advertising revenue, our future has been held hostage by corporate or state interests, the biggest spenders in the advertising industry. Beyond that, blogs like Ghafla, Tuko and twitter users like @KenyanWallStreet are on the payroll of Safaricom, meaning that the information they purport to dispense is skewed and partisan.
The truth is that both Safaricom and ScanGroup are public companies that both CEO’s run as private property. Both firms are subject to Capital Markets Authority (CMA) rules and regulations but have intentionally and consciously used their positions for personal gain or to reward mediocrity. The net-effect of their toxic modus operandi has meant that adverts will remain mediocre and tertiary support of initiatives meant to benefit ordinary citizens will be affected.
For instance, Safaricom instead of sponsoring the humans in sport, opted to paint stands at Kasarani stadium, a white-elephant that’s rarely used because the sports industry continues being neglected by corporates who demand bribes in exchange for the small sponsorships they purport to give. For instance, Bob Collymore has often claimed he cannot sponsor Rugby after his friend Mwangi Muthee was ejected, yet his Vodafone counterparts world over sponsor sporting activities devoid of personal vested interests, in-order to benefit the shareholders and brand.
In Kenya, it’s the opposite. Bob Collymore only awards tenders to whom he wants, and sponsors what warms his heart contrary to the objectives of the company he works for. We now ask shareholders of both companies to force the ejection of Bob Collymore and Bharat Thakrar from their positions, as there are many worthy and qualified Kenyans who don’t think with their stomachs but with the longterm company interest.
We are aware that Bob Collymore fast-tracked his sham wedding to that gold-digging harlot of a woman in order to gain Kenyan citizenship but we are now saying that he doesn’t deserve to be in this country one bit. He can go back to the slum that’s British Guyana because we are no longer impressed by his fake accent and constant media appearances.
Stay tuned for more analysis of the KPMG audit report that has unearthed massive graft in Safaricom.
Hereby attached is the scanned section that highlights Scanad.
