The Rise & Fall of Patrick Gakiavih
I’m becoming increasingly curious about this guy Patrick Gakiavih, the owner/founder of Nyagan’ya Nyagah Stock-”biters”. The Nation has an interesting story about where he ”invested” all that stolen money: He loves his hometown of Embu because he bought a lot of land there.
According to the Nation article, he stole a total of about Ksh. 885 million or the equivalent of $14 million dollars! If your going to steal that much money at least buy yourself a nice townhouse in London or Paris (or maybe even Dubai). What the fark goes on in Embu town?
Anyway, the sad part about this story is that he really did not have to steal. He had a hard to come by brokers license and he could still have made millions just by charging commissions on all those trades. So, why did he do it? The obvious answer is, he thought he could get away with it and in Kenya, that would actually be a pretty good calculation, but it didn’t work out for him.
Why do you think they are going after this guy? Afterall, Kenya is full of much bigger thieves. I’m not saying they shouldn’t go after him, they definitely should. I’m just surprised he hasn’t been able to bribe his way out of his troubles.
There’s also a fascinating story on Gakiavih’s rise in the closely connected and insular stockbroking world. His story is especially interesting because he is a man who started out in the 1990’s with no connections. This guy seems to have been a real entrepreneur who managed to pull himself up from the bootstraps. He did not have to steal and for a long time, he seems to have made it on hard work, intelligence and grit, but temptation ended up getting the better of him.
It’s easy to be sanctimonious and just call the guy a crook, but the truth is, we are all prone to temptations and this is especially so when lots of money is involved. I think Gakiavih’s personal story provides many lessons for all us. Lessons about money, temptation, insecurity and fear.
Why do you think this guy did what he did?
probably never thought he would ever get caught and if he did would get away. seems to be unable to shake off the whole thing though. funny how much land he was buying considering he was running a company dealing stock. goes to show how much faith he had in the stock market.
. lets wait and see how this ends up. hopefully justice will be served.
KE,
This guys did not start/ was not the founder of nyaga stockbrokers, he simply bought out the owners
I think our dear friend just got a little bit ahead of himself, I don’t think he had any intentions of swindling public money, he just took an unconventional huge risk to improve the company’s position but it just didn’t go the way he had anticipated. Mumias sugar and Safaricom gave impetus to the Nyagah fiasco.
Its sad that he started on a good note and ended up the way he did.
However, whatever his intentions might have been, truth is that he swindled money out of hundreds of thousands of investors who had put faith in him. Also, Internationally this fiasco has also dented the image of equity market in Kenya.
Sometimes I begin to wonder personal ambition and growth is good enough reason to be allowed to cheat and get away(of course through bribing!). I think he should be made an example of what can happen for forgery, deception and gross misconduct in a corporate world.
My fear is that if severe (and not whitewash) punishment is not meted out, there will be other Patrick’s who will do it without blinking an eye to me , you and the readers knowing very well that they can get away with it. Personal greed and ambition cannot and should not be an excuse. well if that is the case then everything is fine in Zimbabwe and all the corrupt deals in Kenya.
Also, institutions should also be more vigilant and consumers should ask more questions to avoid the evil of the likes of Patrick’s to rear their head.
Mr Peter Kariuki, I quite agree with your sentiments but i’m not one to wish hard time for individuals especially for cases like these. I think there should be some other form of punishment for the likes of Gakiavih considering the unprecendented nature of his actions and the laxity of capital market regulators in the country. His talent can be put to use to serve the community rather than him languishing in jail wasting tax payers money.