Kiereini taps former NSSF head as director at CMC

Influential businessman Jeremiah Kiereini has tapped former head of the National Social Security Fund to serve his interests in the board of CMC Motors.

Mr Kiereini, 83, nominated Naftali Mogere as director in a boardroom shake-up following an agreement among the auto dealer’s top investors that ended two-year shareholder wrangles.

Mr Mogere’s appointment was approved on Tuesday at CMC’s annual general meeting, which also accepted the appointment of lawyer Kyalo Mbobu and Mark Karbolo as directors. Mr Karbolo chairs the East Africa Portland Cement board.

Mr Mbobu and Mr Karbolo will represent the interests of CMC’s top shareholder Peter Muthoka, who like Mr Kiereini was ousted from the car dealer’s board following the wrangles that led the suspension of the firm’s shares at the Nairobi Securities Exchange.

“Mr Mogere represents Kingsway Nominees,” Joel Kibe, the chairman of CMC told the Business Daily in an interview on Tuesday. Kingsway Nominees is owned by Mr Kiereini, who has a 12.5 per cent stake in the car dealer.

Mr Mogere, who unsuccessfully contested the Bobasi parliamentary seat in the March 4 elections, is a boardroom operative having served as director in the many companies owned by the NSSF.

He sat in the boards of Bamburi Cement, East African Portland Cement, National Bank of Kenya and Housing Finance. Mogere left NSSF in 2005 and in 2006 was tapped as managing director of the National Cereals and Produce Board before he quit in 2007 to plunge into politics.

He joins CMC at a moment when Mr Kiereini has reduced his presence in corporate Kenya, having quit CFC Bank, East Africa Breweries Limited, Unga Limited and CMC.

Mr Kiereini has in the past 20 months had to fend off allegations that he, together with former CMC chief executive Martin Forster, operated illegal offshore accounts worth more than Sh250 million.

The existence of the cash was revealed by Bill Lay, who was a chief executive at CMC, prompting a forensic audit commissioned by the capital markets regulator CMA.

The audit conducted by South African firm Weber Wentzwel mentioned Mr Kiereni as one of the signatories of the secret offshore accounts. Mr Lay left CMC earlier this year.

CMA thereafter banned Mr Kiereini — along with other former CMC directors including Mr Muthoka, Charles Njonjo and Richard Kemoli — from siting on the boards of NSE-listed firms. CMC has gone for more than two years without holding an AGM following boardroom wrangles and persistent court cases.

The CMA cleared the 15,000 shareholders to meet following a truce that has set the stage for resumption of trading in the dealer’s shares at the NSE. The shares were suspended in September 2011.

Among the cases that the shareholders have agreed to withdrawn is a Sh1.5 billion claim that CMC sought to recover from Andy Forwarders, a company owned by Mr Muthoka.

Andy Forwarders, which has a 24.73 per cent stake in the firm, was to nominate two directors to represent its interests.