Equity Group Holdings on Wednesday issued job termination notices to 1,200 employees. The sack notices followed internal investigations that had commenced last month on dubious transactions by the lender’s employees through their bank and M-Pesa accounts.

The sackings were confirmed by the Equity Group chief executive officer and managing director Dr. James Mwangi who vowed to clean up the bank in protection of the customers.

“It doesn’t matter how many I will lose. I don’t even care. I have just started the journey. I will protect the customers and the bank. If you have ever eaten mama mboga’s chicken, the moment of reckoning has come. I will clean the bank and I will be ruthless. This is not a toll station,” Dr. Mwangi said in a interview with local business newspaper, Business Daily.

According to a report that appeared in the daily, earlier this month, the bank had sent home another 286 employees after a financial audit that has targeted branch employees and even top managers.

In another cycle of terminations, 108 employees had been asked to explain the transactions that had been flagged by the audit. 40 reportedly opted to resign while 42 failed to prove their innocence.

The affected employees received cash from customers or other entities linked to the bank, including workmates, into their salary accounts at Equity Bank or their registered M-Pesa numbers.

“If you gave a loan and the first transaction from the loan money is to you account, you won’t even want to come before the panel. If you sold foreign currency to a customer at a lower rate and then there is a transaction from the customer to your account, we can see what you did,” said Dr. Mwangi. “If a customer placed a deposit at 12 percent when rates were 8 percent then some transaction followed, we can also see.”

The letter of termination of employment that were issued to this batch indicated that termination was going into immediate effect. Equity Group employees who get fired will be offered their salary till the last day of work, pay in lieu of outstanding leave days, and pay in lieu of one month’s notice, less any dues owed to the bank.

“It was established that you received amounts into your account number and, or M-Pesa number account under circumstances that were irregular and unethical and which involved and, or were connected to bank customers or entities with a relationship with the bank,” a termination letter stated.

“Consequently, management has decided to terminate your employment effective immediately in accordance with the provisions of the bank’s Consequences Management Policy.”

In a letter that preceded the termination letters in earlier this month, Dr. Mwangi acknowledged that the internal audit was largely influenced by the loss of Sh1.5 billion in July last year that was orchestrated by an employee in collaboration with others who have been presented before the courts.

“In Kenya, it was a payroll of Sh1.5 billion, so that is what triggered us. If a staff member can do this, how many others can do it? It prompted us to ask the question of conflict of interest,” Dr. Mwangi said.

“This year, we did not only audit competence and capabilities to see whether you are fit for the next 10 years, to determine whether to retire or reassign you, but we also checked ‘are you conflicted? Can we trust you? Can you uphold the currency of trust?'”

DCI: How Esther Bitutu Kadiki siphoned Sh1.5 billion from Equity Bank

Equity lost Sh1.5 billion between May 1 2024 and July 31, 2024 in a sophisticated system that the Directorate of Criminal Investigations said included the use of cryptocurrencies, bulk withdrawals, and money transfers to other banks to siphon the money out of Equity Bank.

“The money was made from the bank’s internal Salaries Remittance General Ledger Account Number 0001*100774** and credited to several non-Equity Bank (Kenya) Limited accounts and in all instances, fictitious narrations regarding the actual source of funds were made in the bank’s systems in order to conceal or disguise the nature, source, location, disposition or movement of such funds,” the prosecution has stated in court papers.

When the heist started, Equity Bank’s Internal Control Department had detected a series of suspicious transactions at the bank’s salaries account within the window in which the money was siphoned out. The transactions involved 47 withdrawals. These transactions involved money transfers from the salaries account to multiple other accounts in other banks.

Whenever money is sent from one bank account to another, the systems on each side communicate details of transactions. These details include names of the individuals or entities exchanging funds, amounts involved and the integrity of the transactions. In the case of the 47 withdrawals and transfers, this correspondence was missing.

The correspondence credits were missing from the Equity Bank side where they were being sent from. This raised suspicions  that led the control team to review the transactions. Upon review, it was quickly established that the bank had been robbed Sh1.5 billion.