Thread by @mmnjug

In its prime, @TuskysOfficial was quite the East African retail behemoth. - @NationAfrica

The retailer, which is now on its deathbed after suffering uncontrolled financial hemorrhage, had eyes and ears everywhere. It used the intelligence gathered to grow into East Africa’s biggest supermarket chain.

When it was second only to Nakumatt in size and revenue, @TuskysOfficial hired spies to gather intelligence on its rival, and was willing to splash the cash to become the bigger of the two elephants.

The spies were stationed both in its own stores and at Nakumatt. Each spy got Sh42,000 monthly to gather intelligence, according to numerous documents reviewed by the Nation.Africa

The undercover agents stationed at @Nakumatt were to find out what secrets the blue elephant was using to stay atop the food chain. The ones stationed in Tuskys’ stores were to help stop internal leaks such as shoplifting and theft by employees.

Initially, Tuskys had hired Hipora Business Solutions to curb the internal leaks. It later engaged Syndicate Agencies Limited for the same service.

This was in addition to other measures that, on paper at least, made Tuskys management more than just the proverbial big brother watching from all angles.

The contract Syndicate signed with Tuskys, and which is now part of a court bundle in an insolvency suit against the retailer, states that a separate group of agents were hired to spy on colleagues and shoppers to make sure that nobody was taking a five-finger discount.

Each of these “loss control agents” was paid Sh35,500 per month.

Syndicate also put up CCTV cameras within Tuskys, complete with personnel to watch the feeds all day, and hired other individuals to cross check stock with invoices and purchase orders.

Yet another set of workers would check staffers’ pockets and bags as they walked into work and left for the day. These were the double checkers.

There were also the front-end controllers, whose work was to simply watch the cashiers and make sure that all items purchased were being scanned and billed.

Finally, there was a group of supervisors to oversee all the spies, double checkers and camera control room watchers.

But even with the huge spend on intelligence, Tuskys was still losing more than Sh100M per month to shoplifters. This translated to more than Sh1.2B a year.

In 2015, two years before Tuskys engaged Syndicate and when it was still utilising the services of Hipora Business Solutions, the retailer fired 107 workers for running a shoplifting scheme.

The rogue workers would collude with outsiders to steal from the shelves. In some cases, cashiers would bill customers in full but record lower prices in the system, then pocket the difference.

Some would keep customers’ receipts and then cancel the sale and take the cash from the register, then fake refunds to the shoppers.

The security operations, which were seemingly tight only on paper, have been laid bare in documents filed by Syndicate Agencies Limited, which is among at least 30 creditors currently in court looking to have the struggling retailer put out of its misery through liquidation.

Syndicate Agencies is looking to have @TuskysOfficial wound up for failing to pay Sh30.8M that accrued between November 10, 2017 when the petition was filed, and May 31, 2020 when the two firms fell out over non-payment of dues.

On August 12, 2020, Syndicate Agencies filed the insolvency petition. And 12 days later, @HotpointKenya filed a second insolvency suit against Tuskys.

The electronics firm says in court papers that it has had a business relationship with Tuskys since 2001, and has been supplying electronics to the retailer on credit.

For the first 15 years of the relationship, things were rosy as Tuskys paid up within agreeable timelines.

.@HotpointKenya would give Tuskys coolers, refrigerators, cookers, water dispensers, microwave ovens and television sets. The electronics would be sold to shoppers and pay Hotpoint the agreed sale price.

But since June 3 2016, Tuskys has been taking electronics from Hotpoint without remitting the sale proceeds. As at August 24 2020, when the insolvency petition was filed, Tuskys owed Hotpoint Sh248M for electronics sold but cash not remitted.

On September 30, 2020 High Court Judge Francis Tuiyott presided over a mention of the two insolvency petitions. At the time, only 13 creditors had sought to join the case to support the retailer’s liquidation.

Tuskys’ lawyers Ogola & Mujera Advocates took to the floor and gave hope to creditors that they would get paid soon.

@TuskysOfficial CEO Dan Githua has not returned any of our calls to his known mobile phone number in the past five months. He also has not replied to text messages sent to the same phone number.

How @TuskysOfficial contracted spies to watch on their staff and customers to avoid theft and shoplifting without success and the employees theft syndicate and the debt crisis that has suppliers in court to dissolve the retailer bit.ly/3bHyLp1