Former SportPesa employees’ fingers are crossed after they received an email from the firm’s head of human resources, Terry Wanja Njagi, asking them to report to the company’s office at Chancery Building on Valley Road, Nairobi on Friday, November 1.
Njagi sent out the email to the firm’s ex-staff members at 3:43pm Thursday, October 31.
The letter addressed to “all” had two items listed on the agenda.
The first read: “Withdrawal of termination notices dated 2nd October, 2019.” The second item said: “Tomorrow at 11am [we will communicate the] next steps.”
A former employee of SportPesa, whose last working day was Thursday, October 24, confirmed to K24 Digital that she had received the letter.
“I got the email this afternoon, and all we can now do is speculate [that, hopefully, we will have our jobs back],” she said on phone.
Another ex-staff member of SportPesa also told K24 Digital that he — too — had received the message.
A former executive at SportPesa, however, said he had not received the email, given he had cleared with the company, and, therefore, his work email address was deactivated.
K24 Digital has reached the firm’s communications management for comment.
On October 2, the company announced that it was retrenching its 400-plus employees after it became “impossible” to continue paying salaries, yet its business had stalled in the country following an impasse with Government over tax remittance conflict.
The State said SportPesa owed the taxman at least Ksh14.9 billion in tax arrears, a claim that SportPesa CEO, Captain Ronald Karauri, refuted.
It remains unclear whether all the employees of the firm will have their jobs back after the much-anticipated November 1 meeting.
More soon.