A week after Rosemary Koech was buried by her family in Kericho, the public outcry over the working environment at Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) continues unabated, with a growing body of testimonies from current and former employees exposing what they describe as a workplace culture marked by bullying, humiliation, excessive workloads and managerial hostility across different branches and departments.
Rosemary, 40, headed KCB Data Protection Division before she died by suicide at her Ngong residence on August 21, 2026, with a post mortem examination confirming the cause of death, while a May 2026 email she sent to the bank Human Resources department named Group Chief Risk Officer Faith Basiye as the superior who bullied her at work, subjected her to public ridicule and burdened her with crushing workloads.
In the same correspondence, Rosemary accused Basiye of conspiring with her estranged husband, Kevin Migwe Kimwatu, to have her committed to a mental health facility, with the complaint copied to KCB Chief Executive Officer Paul Russo and Managing Director Annastacia Kimtai, neither of whom responded, while Human Resources took no action on the complaint.
That email became public shortly after her death, transforming a private tragedy into a much wider public reckoning as employees and former employees began coming forward with experiences of their own, turning social media into a running record of workplace complaints from branches and departments across Kenya.
Rosemary Kimwatu’s email to KCB Human Resources detailing her complaints against Faith Basiye.
What followed was no longer simply an outpouring of grief over the death of one employee, but a torrent of testimonies from people who said they had endured harassment, humiliation, excessive workloads and managerial conduct that had pushed them towards breaking point.
Growing Complaints Across KCB Branches
The complaints now emerging from KCB extend well beyond the circumstances surrounding Rosemary’s death, with employees, former employees and customers describing workplace distress and deteriorating service across branches and departments, while some customers say the consequences of the internal environment have become increasingly visible in the quality of service they receive.
“There’s so many cases of toxic bosses at KCB. Especially the branch at Kencom,” one post stated bluntly.
The complaint was followed by another observation from someone familiar with the branch.
“Sometimes you don’t even need to be told, you go in there and you read the energy. People need to realize jobs come and go, titles don’t mean much when you are an awful human being and pride comes before a fall,” they wrote.
The descriptions of Kencom point to an atmosphere in which employees appear tense and unhappy, with the conduct of supervisors said to be sufficiently visible that customers can form an impression of what is happening without being given any explanation, while reports of staff being reprimanded in the banking hall suggest that the pressure extends into ordinary interactions with customers.
“So many people are suffering in silence in those beautiful corporate offices. The higher you go the crazier it becomes,” another post stated.
The remark captures a recurring theme across the complaints, with workers describing an institution whose polished corporate image sits uneasily alongside the distress they say exists behind its offices and branch counters.
The Voi branch has also repeatedly featured in the complaints, with one person stating simply, “The one in Voi had staff crying,” while other comments described employees across sales, customer service and teller functions as visibly unhappy.
“Just get into any bank and you can read those employees ain’t happy from sales, Customer service, tellers,” another post said, suggesting that the dissatisfaction being described is not confined to a particular department but can be seen in the everyday conduct of staff serving customers.
The references to Voi indicate that complaints about employee welfare predate the public discussion surrounding Rosemary’s death, with the branch being cited as an example of an environment in which workers were already experiencing distress and customers had begun noticing the effect.
KCB customers have also linked what they perceive as a deterioration in service to what they describe as a weakening internal environment, with one account holder saying, “I believe the toxic workplace rumours. As a KCB account holder, their services have been deteriorating over the last two years or so. Like it wasn’t the best bank 5 years ago, but nowadays it’s behaving as if internal systems have collapsed just like Kenya.”
The observation is notable because it comes from the customer side of the institution, where dissatisfaction is being framed not simply around individual encounters at a branch but around a perceived decline in the quality and efficiency of KCB services over an extended period.
Other customers have described problems with the consistency of information coming from the bank, with one saying, “Bad things are happening in that bank. Some weeks ago I had 3 different customer representatives give me different information on the same product. Hapo ndio nilijua that bank is cooked. Kitambo even their watchmen used to have the right information for all their products.”
The complaint points to a different form of service failure, in which customers seeking clarification on the same banking product can receive conflicting information from different representatives, leaving them uncertain about which guidance is accurate and whether staff across the institution are working from the same information.
The same customer described a separate experience involving the bank’s response to an issue raised through its customer service channels, saying, “OMG! I thought I was the only one. When I raised the issue in my DM about the different conflicting info, they were asking for my local branch which had also given me the wrong info, when them knowing my local branch at that particular time wouldn’t have solved my issue.”
The complaint was accompanied by another report of being contacted by a local branch over an issue that had originally been raised through the bank’s online customer service channels.
“Plus last year I was called by my local branch about something I had enquired on Twitter that had nothing to do with them. Badala the online team solves our issue they are threatening our local branches. Something is wrong somewhere in KCB,” the customer wrote.
Another customer described a similar reluctance to rely on the bank’s central channels, saying, “Yes something is really wrong. Siku hizi when I have queries I just go to the branch and ask for help huko. I make sure we have exhausted every single option. Even when they tell me they’ll escalate with their team at head office, I’ll just wait until they get back to me.”
The complaints extend beyond the behaviour of particular employees to the way information and customer complaints are passed between KCB’s central teams and branches, with customers describing situations in which a complaint raised through one channel is redirected to a branch that may itself have supplied conflicting information.
One customer went further, describing a response in which raising an issue led to contact from the local branch.
“Don’t get me started with the fact that if you raise an issue here, they reach out to the relevant branch and threaten them. I received a call from my local branch and the person on the end of that call told me to raise issues at the branch if I can,” the customer wrote.
The complaint presents a picture of customers becoming reluctant to use central complaint channels because they fear that doing so will simply send the matter back to the branch involved, while the branch itself may have been the source of the original problem.
The consequences of such frustrations are also reflected in reports from customers who say they have taken their business elsewhere, with one person writing, “I know someone who had to change his bank due to frustration.”
At Industrial Area, separate complaints have centred on a supervisor identified as Norena, with one post asking, “Na industrial area je? Yule kantito Norena has made many young people abandon jobs from KCB. Yet they can’t be fired since they are related to senior bosses.”
The complaint links the departure of young employees to the conduct of the supervisor while also making a direct claim that family connections to senior management have protected her from dismissal.
The issue raised in the Industrial Area complaints is twofold, involving both the treatment of junior employees and the belief among some workers that managerial connections can determine who is protected and who leaves, with the consequence that employees who cannot tolerate the environment simply abandon their positions.
The complaints from the headquarters marketing unit follow a similar pattern of rapid departures, with one former worker stating, “Worked for their marketing team, everybody quit within months their toxicity is crazy.”
Another former employee described a work environment in which employees did not remain long enough to establish themselves because the hostility within the team became impossible to tolerate.
The concentration of complaints around employee turnover is particularly notable because several of the accounts describe resignation not as the result of normal career progression but as an escape from working conditions that former employees considered unbearable, with junior workers and recently recruited staff appearing repeatedly in the descriptions.
The complaints also extend to accusations of sexual harassment, with one person writing, “KCB has had a 5 decade long reputation, of sexual harassment from the bosses, regardless of gender.”
The statement introduces a much older dimension to the complaints, with the commentator linking the behaviour of senior managers towards employees to a history they say stretches back decades and affects staff regardless of whether the managers or employees involved are men or women.
The Kisii West branch has drawn a different category of criticism, this time from customers describing their direct experiences with staff, with one customer writing, “KCB Kisii West customer care is the worst. Kwanza if you have the unfortunate experience of being attended by the lady employees there. Very rude.”
The complaint places the focus squarely on customer treatment, adding another dimension to the wider discussion because dissatisfaction is being expressed not only by employees and former employees describing their working environment but also by customers who say the conduct of staff has affected the quality of their banking experience.
Other complaints have moved beyond particular branches and drawn comparisons with earlier periods in the bank, with one commentator writing, “KCB ilikuwa Bank mzuri siku za ule MD Mjaluo alikuwa anaitwa Oduor if I’m not wrong, saii KCB ina mistreat employee na client pamoja,” before making further accusations regarding the use of the bank.
The reference to the former managing director forms part of a recurring comparison in the complaints, with some commentators describing an earlier KCB as a better-managed institution and contrasting it with what they perceive as the current treatment of both employees and customers.
The complaints have also included direct calls for intervention from financial regulators, with one person urging the Central Bank of Kenya to act, writing, “Dear @CBKKenya do something as this is a systemically important bank. I have seen serious allegations here on X.”
The appeal reflects growing pressure for the complaints surrounding KCB to be addressed beyond individual customer service channels and internal management structures, with some members of the public calling for intervention from the institution responsible for oversight of the banking sector.
The discussion has also taken a darker turn in comments about Rosemary’s death, with one person writing, “They ended her and framed it as suicide and no one is saying anything. And she had been complaining of Corporate harassment. No one is safe.”
Other users have described the pressure more personally, with one person writing, “Can’t withstand toxicity! I just quit,” a brief statement that nonetheless captures the most consequential outcome described across the wider complaints, namely employees leaving after reaching the point at which they could no longer tolerate their working environment.
The volume and spread of the complaints suggest that the issue is not confined to a single workplace dispute, with reports from different branches and departments describing bullying, humiliation, excessive workloads, hostile supervisors, branch-level intimidation, poor customer service, rapid staff departures, conflicting information and customers taking their business elsewhere.
What began with the disclosure of Rosemary’s complaint is now widening into a much larger examination of working conditions at KCB, with the testimony now stretching from individual supervisors and specific branches to complaints about employee treatment, possible protection of managers through senior connections, sexual harassment, staff turnover, inconsistent product information, customer service failures, internal handling of complaints and demands for external intervention.
Culture at the Top
The complaints repeatedly turn towards Managing Director Annastacia Kimtai, who assumed leadership of KCB in April 2023 as the first woman to head the bank, with online posts and employee testimonies describing her management style as authoritarian and dismissive.
KCB Bank Kenya Managing Director Annastacia Kimtai.
Employees describe an environment in which mistakes are met with fear rather than opportunities for learning and development, while staff turnover is described as extraordinarily high, with people leaving not because they have secured better opportunities elsewhere but because they have reached the point at which they can no longer endure the working conditions.
The question of whether the current leadership can credibly address the toxic culture that employees describe is complicated by the history of the man who now serves as KCB Group CEO, Paul Russo, who previously held the position of Human Resources Director at the bank before ascending to the top job.During his tenure as HR chief, three female employees formally reported Russo for sexual harassment, with the complaints describing incidents in which he would summon women to his office, deliberately drop a pen on the floor, instruct them to bend down and retrieve it, then throw another pen and repeat the demand.
This was a ritual that those who reported it said was designed to force them into positions that allowed him to observe their bodies from behind.
The fact that Russo, despite those complaints, rose to become Group CEO raises an inescapable question about whether the institution ever took workplace harassment seriously enough to prevent the very person who had been accused of it from eventually leading the entire organization.
KCB Group CEO Paul Russo
The same Human Resources department that failed to act on Rosemary’s May 2026 complaint operated under Russo’s leadership at the time of the sexual harassment allegations, meaning the structure that employees now describe as a shield for senior management was built and reinforced during his tenure and has remained intact while he ascended to the highest executive position in the bank.
Other employees have described similar experiences involving complaints that disappeared after submission, whistleblowers who were punished rather than protected and a structure in which those at the highest levels appeared insulated from the consequences of complaints lodged against them.
The pattern is consistent: those who hold power at KCB, whether at the executive level or in senior management roles, appear to operate without fear of accountability, while those who report misconduct are left without recourse and often forced out.
The question of whether a bank whose current CEO was himself the subject of sexual harassment complaints during his time as Human Resources Director can reform its workplace culture is not merely rhetorical but speaks to whether the institution possesses the capacity to change from within or whether external intervention has become unavoidable.
Oxygène PR Machine and the Cover-Up
KCB has for years retained Oxygène Marketing Communications as its public relations agency, with the firm counting the bank among its major clients and operating under the leadership of Linus Gitahi and Nick Wachira, while in the aftermath of Rosemary’s death, the communications strategy has directed public attention towards her marital separation, financial disputes and her husband political ambitions instead of the workplace complaint she formally submitted against Basiye.
The attempt to frame the circumstances around Rosemary’s death through the lens of her private life has generated a strong response on social media, where users have pointed back to the written complaint she submitted to KCB management months before her death and argued that her own documented account of what she was experiencing at work cannot simply be displaced by discussion of her marriage and family circumstances.
Faith Basiye, Group Chief Risk Officer at KCB Bank Kenya
Rosemary herself had previously worked at Oxygène between 2020 and 2022, initially serving as Legal and Regulatory Specialist before becoming Head of Public Policy, meaning the agency had a direct professional connection to her before her move to KCB.
The public relations response has consequently become part of the wider controversy, with questions being directed at why attention has been placed on Rosemary’s personal affairs while the substance of the workplace complaint that she sent to senior management remains unresolved.
The Ksh 146 Billion Question
Before Rosemary’s family buried her, the Alliance for Human Rights Activists issued KCB with a 72-hour ultimatum demanding an independent investigation into her death together with the preservation of all physical and electronic evidence, including emails, system logs and audit trails, while the group specifically demanded that evidence relating to a Ksh 146 billion transaction be preserved.
The activists threatened mass action outside KCB headquarters if the demands were not met, issuing the ultimatum at a time when Rosemary’s body was still lying at Lee Funeral Home and pressure was building around the circumstances of her death.
The Ksh 146 billion transaction has not been explained by KCB, while the activists have not publicly elaborated on the precise connection they draw between the transaction and Rosemary’s death, yet the demand for preservation of the records has introduced a much larger question into the public discussion.
That question is whether Rosemary’s position as Head of Data Protection could have placed her in possession of sensitive information capable of exposing wrongdoing within the bank, particularly because her role gave her access to some of the institution’s most sensitive records and required her to oversee compliance and data integrity.
Add Comment