Letter to the Director of Immigration over Illegal Brazilian Workers at Rift Valley Railways

Dear Sir,

Sir, I am humbly requesting you to save Rift Valley Railways Kenya from unqualified foreigners who perpetrate anarchy against local employees. Sir, all senior positions in Rift Valley Railways Kenya have been taken up by Brazilians who are now employing their relatives and friends without any qualifications. As a patriotic Kenyan citizen it is painful to watch as unqualified foreigners take up positions of General Managers and Managers and some of them even cannot communicate in English.

Sometimes the company hires Portuguese-English translators to walk around with them yet they are General Managers and Manager and are paid millions of shillings in salaries. Some of them do not even have university degrees but they come and become bosses of very qualified Kenyan citizens who have experience and academic qualifications to occupy some of these positions. Sometime these foreigners come into Kenya and start working even before they have work permits. Sir, please investigate what is happening because even without qualifications these people manage to get work permits. For the ones saying they have degrees you could try and verify authenticity since some are 22 and say they have masters with 8 years’ experience. You wonder if they were born working.

Some are coming when they are well past 60 years retirement age. If you sermon them to your office and speak with them in English, you will believe what I am saying. These foreigners are able to come into RVR because the Chief Executive Officer (Carlos Andrade) and the Chief Operating Officer (Fabio Steffler) are also foreigners from Brazil. All other executive positions in RVR are occupied by foreigners (Chief Commercial Officer – Andreas Heinel, Chief Finance Officer – Bong Yoon). Therefore there is nobody to speak up or to stop what is happening.

Names of some of these expatriates are Paulo Cucchi (General Manager), Jose Nigro (General Manager), Flavio Balieiro (General Manager), Rafael Araujo (General Manager), Mrs. Rafael Araujo, Marco Araujo (General Manager), Andrie Swart (General Manager), Emerson Lopes (Manager) Paulo Jurno, Eliel Queiroz, Christian Vargas, Newton, John, Jamin, Ricardo, Sandro, Fabiano, Chico, Emerson Lopez, Flavio Ballerio, Hernani. Sir, some of these people do not even have university degrees and some are below 25 years old yet they come in to be the bosses (general managers) of Kenyans citizens who have degrees and even Masters with impeccable working history. The few staff who questioned these have been retrenched or terminated without cause. Some individuals like in procurement are perennial understudies and working under a 4th expat GM. When they see you as a threat since you’ve been an understudy under different individual, they start a campaign to brand you a poor performer and fire you without a performance appraisal. A lady employee Caroline Njue was fired last year for refusing to share her password with her Brazilian supervisor. These are primarily perpetrated by the CEO, Carlos Andrade with the help of his Brazilian lieutenants.

Sir, please investigate why foreigners without qualifications are able to get work permits and keep renewing them over and over through a company called Kenyalink. Sir, these foreigners treat Kenyan employees without respect, insult and intimidate them. Some qualified Kenyans who have tried to question decisions of these unqualified foreigners are fired. Most of the Kenyan employees they did not like were included in a retrenchment that took place in November 2014. Once retrenched, they fill your positions quickly with new individuals or Brazilians. This is against employment act.

There have been mass resignations due to unfair treatment where the expats get preferential treatment. This has resulted in the company currently having no local rail experienced engineer.

Sir, please, patriotism and integrity are some of the core values of your department. I humbly plead with you to do your own investigation and I am sure you will cancel most of these work permits and prosecute them accordingly. Also this will save many families that are represented in RVR that will otherwise be jobless, homeless and hopeless.

Thank you in advance, Sir.

source… http://www.kahawatungu.com/2015/07/14/letter-to-the-director-of-immigration-over-illegal-brazilian-workers-at-rift-valley-railways/

anyone with insight into this allegations…

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Looks legit. Some of the names appear on on staff list http://www.riftvalleyrail.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=71&Itemid=119

More sleuthing brings out a possible loose end: NaiCONi sits in the board http://www.riftvalleyrail.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=84&Itemid=43
Smells of the Brazillian/KQ manenos again

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No. Boss I have gone through employment process in foreign countries na sio mchezo. Labour department asks a thousand and one questions. Education department must make sure your qualifications match the local ones. It is stringent even in the US getting an H1-B visa ni noma and the amounts of money the employer must deposit as security on your behalf.

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Total absurdity at it’s highest level!!! How in the World do we sign off to one sided deals like this? Don’t we have qualified local people who can run this outfit? Did we fully privatize RVR? This is annoying to me as a citizen as we cannot replicate the same in their country no matter what our qualifications or technological advancements may be. One or two qualified expatriates may be enough but not a crowd…and also how factual is a report from Kahawa Tungu?

By the time he is done with us NaiCONi will have pulled a major heist way bigger than KIDero

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/image/view/-/2072318/medRes/622128/-/maxw/600/-/10a7qls/-/kq.jpg

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True dat

Plus there needs to be evidence that the skills the foreigners bring cannot be sourced locally. Lakini knowing Kenyans we have a weakness for anything foreign.

that is a private company Siz.

tafadhali soma sheria before upost.

The issue of RVR looks complicated judging from what i have read online. The railways seem to have been privatised completely with govt having no say

boss expartriate employment laws target the private sector since traditionally govts dont employ foreigners unless.as consultants and advisors. Yaani so many Kenyans can be suckered like rhis? no wonder wahindi huleta watu wao and we sit back because we dont know.

its our immigration department that is asleep, the company should prove the skills that the outsider is bringing cannot be sourced locally vile umeambiwa hapo, but wanapewa kitu wana stamp papers ya people who have come to drive lorries

Partnerships
In November 2010 Rift Valley Railways
Consortium signed a technical and
management agreement with América
Latina LogĂ­stica , based in Curitiba ,
Brazil. The firm is the largest
independent company of its kind in
Latin America . It has operations in
Argentina and Brazil, where it
oversaw the successful privatization
of the national railway system.
América Latina Logística will provide
RVR with key management and
operational staff and will oversee the
transfer of technology, including
selection and sourcing of raw
material and IT software and
hardware. The initial partnership is
for a renewable term of five years,
starting in November 2010.
If they have the papers then it will be difficult to pin them down. Also sadly the govt has no shareholding in RVR except for receiving concession fees. Hii ni ngumu

It’s a concession for 25 years…fully privitased mean thats it’s been sold…

I doubt they can do that in Uganda…it’s hard there to get a work permit even for a Kenyan

This is the same thing that happened to KQ …they gave away the key positions to staff from KLM who made sure the operations decisions will favour KLM…and in the board KLM had Veto powers even though it had only 2 slots …even that current CEO was a no nominee of KLM

You see for you to get a work permit to work in Kenya there are stringet conditions that must be met 1. They must be for key management staff 2. It must be for a given time period after which a Kenyan should take over 3.it must be for professional work that can be proven that you can’t get the qualifications locally and there is a quata of how many people you can bring …and even then you can’t get a work permit for junior positions

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Most Brazilians companies employ their youths in big corporations. Kama Vale Mining in Zambia hivi hivi, managed by very young fellows. In Kenya a 25yo is seen as a baby.

You are so wrong my friend.

That’s exactly my point