Chandarana Foodplus owners snub Kaparo team over 'racist' email

Chandarana Foodplus owners have snubbed summons to appear before the National Cohesion and Integrity Commission (NCIC) over racially insensitive email.

Now, the cohesion team is mulling legal action against the supermarket over their defiance.

NCIC Chairman Francis Ole Kaparo said the commission had twice sent the supermarket officials a summoning letter, which they confirmed receipt and willingness to attend.

“It is already way past the time the commission was supposed to cross-examine them, yet they still are not here,” said Mr Kaparo.

Trouble for Chandarana Foodplus, started when a marketing staff, Ms Rita Patel, sent out an email to the supermarket's managers on its new promotion policy, saying the retailer was now focusing on white clients.

“We are delighted to inform you that our supermarket chain would like to give you free vouchers to winner/raffles/best performer/runners up candidate in upcoming events. As we are now focusing on white people to attract our supermarkets,” part of the email read.

The email kicked off a storm on social media forcing Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko to order revocation of licences of the chain of supermarkets.

The order, which was made on Sunday evening, resulted from complaints about racism at the retail chain.

The food chain has since issued an apology over the email but blamed the wording of the email on the marketing specialist, who they said has a poor grasp of the English language.

“Chandarana Foodplus would like to sincerely apologise for the unfortunate and insensitive narrative written on email by one of our very new and recent hires in the marketing department,” the statement read in part.

Chandarana’s director, Mr Dipan Thakkar, said they have since started disciplinary action against the offending staff as one of the steps aimed at addressing the matter conclusively.