Chandarana supermarket takes action against employee behind racist email

Chandarana Foodplus Supermarket has conceded that there was a chain of communication that profiled some of its customers sparking the ongoing racism allegations against the outlet.

In a letter addressed to Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko, who had directed that Chandarana business licences be revoked, the company’s director Dippan Thakkar said disciplinary action had been instituted against the employee who authored the controversial message.

“In addition to an apology released to the public on Saturday, the management has commenced the disciplinary process on the employee who authored the promotion communication, which will guide our steps on addressing the matter conclusively,” read part of the letter.

The management further said it was putting in place necessary structures to avert a similar incident in future.

“Once again we apologize for the incident as we put in place the necessary structures to prevent recurrence of similar incidents,” said Chandarana.

Also Read: Chandarana Supermarket blames racist email on ‘very new employee’

To array any fears of racism at Chandarana supermarket, the director noted that majority of their employees are Kenyans, adding that their supplies are also from the local market.

“Chandarana supermarket has operated for 50 years, it was started in as a small shop in Eastleigh and it has now grown into a mainstream supermarket with 13 branches countrywide thanks to the support of our esteemed customers, suppliers and the government,” added the director.

“We are a leading employer in Kenya with 1246 employees on our payroll in various capacities including management. Out of this number only 3% are expatriates. We also get our supplies from over 2500 suppliers, 95% being local companies.”

Chandarana came under fire a screenshot of an email from the supermarket’s Marketing Specialist Rima Patel to managers surfaced on social media sites.

The screenshot read as follows, “We are delighted to inform you that our supermarket chain, would like to give you free vouchers to winner/raffles/best performer/runners-up candidate in upcoming events. As we are now focusing on white people to attract our supermarkets.”

The mail, perceived to have implied that the retail chain was only interested in white clients, elicited anger from Kenyans on social media with most of them vowing to boycott the supermarket’s outlets.

Amid the public uproar, Governor Sonko announced the revocation of the Chandarana licences, however, a spot check by Citizen TV on Monday confirmed that the supermarket’s outlets were still operational.

While some Kenyans praised the cancellation of the Chandarana licences, others including legal experts questioned the validity of Sonko’s actions, wondering whether it could result to legal repercussions.