By M&M Reporter
Central Bank of Kenya Governor Patrick Njoroge will tomorrow afternoon meet Imperial Bank depositors to discuss the way forward following the last minute receipt of a revised proposal on the collapsed bank’s take over from KCB Bank.
The meeting also comes at a time when CBK has confirmed that Diamond Trust Bank (DTB) has withdrawn its interest on the troubled bank.
The bank was placed under receivership in October 2015 following the discovery of a Sh38billion fraud orchestrated by its former group managing director Abdulmalek Janmohammed with the support of senior CBK officials.
Imperial Bank Depositors Lobby Group said in their Facebook and Twitter accounts today that CBK and Kenya Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC) had scheduled the meeting for 2.00 PM at the KICC Amphitheatre.
“This is to inform all you that there will be a meeting for all IBL-IR Depositors to be addressed by Dr. Patrick Njoroge the Governor of Central Bank of Kenya, Agenda “Way Forward” following the yesterday’s press release on announcement on KCB as the selected EOI bidder,” said the lobby group.
The meeting is expected to be stormy given it comes at a time when the process of seeking for a buyer of the troubled bank is coming to an end with no clear road map on the fate of the depositors savings frozen in the bank.
On July 24, 2018, CBK announced that it had received a revised proposal for the Imperial Bank take over from KCB Bank. But KCB is the only bidder given that DTB its competitor in the bidding process pulled in unclear circumstances.
Withdrawal of interest by DTB means that KCB has an upper hand against CBK in negotiating a good deal for the depositors.
The timing of the meeting will be of particular interest to the depositors given that they have tried to have audience in the past with the governor and KDIC officials have failed to bear fruits.
Njoroge will be meeting the depositors five days before the end of the receivership extension at a time when the purpose of the extension granted in July last year has not been realized.
At the same time, the meeting will take place under a heavy cloud of suspicion on CBK maneuvers on Imperial Bank during the period of receivership. Instructively, CBK and KDIC have been reluctant to respond to depositors’ queries on the state of the bank or the developments in the bidding process. It will be interesting to see whether Njoroge will satisfactorily respond to the queries from depositors on the receivership.
But banking industry pundits say they expect Njoroge will use tomorrow’s meeting to buy the depositors support for another extension of the receivership in order to review the KCB revised proposal or to start the process of seeking buyer for the bank afresh.
Instructively, the announcement about KCB proposal came after this news site reported that CBK was considering starting the search for Imperial Bank buyer afresh.