300 To Lose Jobs As De La Rue Shuts Kenyan Business

The company that designs and prints Kenyan currency is suspending operations in Kenya. De La Rue made the announcement last week, getting many analysts by surprise, and kept tongues wagging as to what was the main reason behind the announcement.

The announcement by De La Rue came a few days after the High Court of Kenya ordered them to pay at least 1.1 billion shillings in taxes to Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) that they failed to remit, and did not show the same in their audited books.

De La Rue prints Kenyan notes through a local venture that the Kenyan Government owns 40 percent. The company says it will release the last batch of notes in March this year before going cold for about 12 months. It says it does not expect any demand for printing notes in at least 12 months.

More than 300 workers have since been released. Sources within the company say that the company has been sending home workers since June last year.

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The workers said about 60 of their colleagues who were on the contract were let go in July. Another 72 employees who were serving on permanent terms were released in September.

“Government is not printing any new notes now. Those of us who were dealing with notes left. The last order of banknotes they (De La Rue) got was up to September 2022,” said one of the workers who sought anonymity. (Business Daily).

De La Rue late 2018 won an £85 million (Sh13 billion) tender to design and manufacture Kenya’s new currency generation notes as the country moved to remove the faces of individuals from its currency.

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