Francis Gaitho has drawn public attention to the recent deaths of two senior bank executives and linked them to what he describes as a predatory employment model in Kenya’s major banks, particularly Equity Bank and KCB Bank.
In a widely shared post, Gaitho noted the passing of Eva Ngigi Sarwari, managing director of Finserve Africa and Equity Group’s director of payments and international banking, who died at the age of 45 while on a business trip to China.
Colleagues announced her death in a statement that expressed deep sadness and described the news as a sudden and profound shock, without disclosing the cause or exact date.
This followed the death two months earlier of Rosemary Chemutai Kimwatu of KCB, who died by suicide.
Gaitho argued that these losses occur against a backdrop of banks that overwork and underpay staff in pursuit of higher returns for shareholders.
The criticism centres on a work culture that Gaitho says has stripped away many of the supports once associated with bank employment. Benefits such as company houses, staff transport, internal catering and club memberships were removed under the justification of cost-cutting and rationalisation.
He claimed, executive pay packages grew substantially. In his view, the result is an environment in which staff are treated primarily as instruments for generating profit rather than as people whose health and family lives require protection.
Work-life balance, he suggested, has been set aside in favour of relentless targets and the appearance of career advancement.
Equity Bank receives particular scrutiny in Gaitho’s account. He described it as a case study of banking success built in part on the decline of cooperative structures.
According to him, the bank expanded by offering cheap loans during periods of low interest rates, then shifted focus toward government lending and aggressive debt recovery.
This process, he said, allowed senior figures including CEO James Mwangi and chairman Peter Munga to accumulate significant property holdings through the seizure of collateral. Gaitho also pointed to Mwangi’s long tenure as chief executive, spanning more than three decades, which he described as unusual for a publicly listed company.
He further alleged that the bank has appeared among entities claiming repayment from the Kenyan government for loans tied to projects whose existence or value he questioned.
KCB is drawn into the same picture through the earlier death of Rosemary Chemutai Kimwatu.
Family accounts, as referenced by Gaitho, spoke of marital strain and the burden of debts alongside the pressures of a demanding risk and data-protection role.
In both cases, public statements or official records provide dates and locations but remain silent on the cumulative effect of long hours, performance targets, reduced staff benefits and the constant pressure that continues after condolences are issued.
Gaitho framed the two deaths as sitting inside a single arrangement. One executive died while travelling to keep the bank’s payments and international operations running. The other took her own life after years inside a high-pressure corporate role.
The model, he argued, treats employees as resources to be maximised for shareholder returns. Older forms of workplace support have been eliminated while senior compensation has risen, and the cycle continues uninterrupted by the obituaries that follow.
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