Akamba, East Africa’s oldest transport company, survived an attempt to close it down after the High Court rejected a petition seeking to wind it up.
Mr Justice JM Mutava on Thursday struck down the petition filed by a section of directors of the Akamba Public Road Services Company, saying that they did not have the legal status to lodge the suit. “My view is that the defects that afflict the present petition are dire and go into the core of its validity. The petitioner driving the petition is not a shareholder” said the judge. The petition was the result of a family feud that has spilled over into the company’s boardroom and is currently playing out in the courts. Mr Karim Amirali Abbany, a step-brother of the company’s chief executive officer, Mr Karim Sherali Nathoo, teamed up with 13 other shareholders to file a case seeking to wind up the transport firm, accusing majority shareholders of “mismanagement and embezzlement of funds”. The petitioners told the judge that “the majority shareholders conducted the affairs of the company in an oppressive manner”. Further, they accused them of voting for handpicked directors, borrowing in excess as well as misallocating resources. However, the court ruled in favour of Mr Nathoo and his brother Sherali Nathoo, who had filed a counter petition alleging that Mr Abbany had no right to wind up the company since he was not a shareholder. Mr Abanny argued that he was acting on behalf of his shareholding mother, Ms Zarina Nathoo, who is unable to transact business personally due to age-related illness and frailty. Affidavit
In a court affidavit, the Nathoo brothers further question Mr Abbany’s rights, saying that he is “a son of Zarina born before she was married to our father”.
In his ruling, however, Mr Justice Mutava did not bar petitioners from pursuing similar action in the future. “The petitioners are at liberty to institute a fresh compliant petition should they still be inclined to find the option the best way forward in addressing the grievances they have against the company,” he said. Akamba was founded in the 1950s after the merger of Commercial Bus Company, Makueni Bus Company and Western Bus Company. Over time, Akamba would come to dominate road transport in the region, going as far as organising a road trip for Kenyan football fans to the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Sources trace the company’s woes to the death of one of its founding directors, Mr Sherali Nathoo, in 2000. His shares in the firm were split between his biological sons and their step-mother. The two factions have since engaged in a power tussle that has precipitated the firm’s downward trend. It recently emerged that the transport firm is mired in debt. Sources say the company’s buses have been repossessed by creditors, leading to a suspension of passenger services. Source: http://www.nation.co.k
