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 4^th 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.

CONCERNED AND PATRIOTIC KENYAN