More than 400 SportPesa employees, who were rendered jobless on October 2 after their contracts were terminated, were on Friday, November 1, issued with redundancy notices.

The meeting was called by the firm’s head of human resources, Terry Wanja Njagi, via an email dated Thursday, October 31, and addressed to all ex-staff members.

And, in their hundreds, the former employees of Kenya’s leading betting firm trooped to the Chancery Building on Valley Road, Nairobi on Friday ahead of the 11am convention that they hoped would see them get their jobs back.

However, that did not happen.

According to sources who spoke to local dailies, the meeting, which lasted less than 20 minutes, yielded only one message: that all the employees’ termination letters have been withdrawn, and replaced with redundancy letters.

 “They [SportPesa management] did not give us the information we expected [that we’ll have our jobs back]. In the extremely brief meeting, they said that our termination letters were withdrawn, and that we will, instead, be served with redundancy notices as the Kenyan labour law demands,” said an informant, who spoke to a local daily on condition of anonymity.

In an October 31, the company’s CEO Captain Ronald Karauri said via a letter: “We refer you to our notice of termination of employment dated October 2, 2019. By copy of this letter, please consider the said-notice withdrawn with immediate effect and the content therein nullified.”