Beware: Unconscionable Loans Offered To Vulnerable Joluo.

Any person within Kisumu County facing unconscionable attachment of livestock by an organization called MyFugo Innovations Ltd and an auctioneer called Top Leaf Auctioneers, and who is not able to access legal services, should get in touch.

I gather that this organization lured thousands of peasants in the villages and collected money from them purportedly as payment of shares so that they qualify for loans. The same money collected as shares was then granted to some peasants as loans, with their livestock and households as security for the loans. Several of their relatives and neighbours also signed off their own livestock as guarantors to the loanees. 

The said loans have become a nightmare to the villagers. Despite most of the loanees repaying the entire loan amounts, most of them report that the organization is demanding from them huge interests, some as much as 300% of the initial loan.

In the last one week, Top Leaf Auctioneers has raided the villages in the dead of the night, accompanied by thugs, violently taking away hundreds of livestock in lorries, purportedly in realization of security for the loans. To redeem their livestock, the peasants are asked not only to pay the huge amounts unilaterally demanded by the organisation but also unconscionable amounts demanded as Auctioneer’s fees. No accounts are provided to them. 

Yesterday morning a number of my neighbours came home to seek my advice on the matter. I asked them for copies of the purported loan agreements. They told me that they were not given copies of the same.

I asked them for the contacts of the organisation or the auctioneer. They gave me the number of one James Omollo Magero – +254783844711. I called the number.

The guy picked and I introduced myself. I told him that I had instructions to request for copies of the loan agreements. He told me arrogantly that the organization does not give copies of the same. I informed him of the right of the loanees to a copy of the agreement binding them but he told me that he would not give them out and referred me to a lady whom he claimed to be the organization’s lawyer.

I called the lady who did not pick my calls. I sent her a text explaining my agenda. She replied promising to get back to me today. She didn’t. I called again this afternoon, but just like John Omollo Magero had done after speaking to me yesterday, she had blocked my number.

I bumped into a copy of the Court Order issued by a Court at Winam allowing the auctioneer to break into the loanees homes to collect the proclaimed livestock and ordering the local police bosses to provide security to the auctioneer.

I went to Winam Court registry today to peruse the file, hoping to find copies of the loan agreements and repayment schedules and/or any notices demanding the repayment attached to the affidavit supporting the Miscellaneous Application.

I was surprised that the only attachments to Affidavit supporting the Miscellaneous Application was the purported instructions by the organization to the auctioneer and copies of proclamations grossly undervaluing the proclaimed livestock. I wondered how such an order could be obtained without any supporting document justifying the outstanding loans as a basis for night raids by the auctioneers and his thugs throughout the villages. 

I hold the view that MyFogo Innovations Ltd does not aim at improving the productivity and profitability of dairy farmers in East Africa through digitization and enhancement of value chain processes as it claims in its website www.myfugo.com.

This is, in my considered view, a criminal outfit preying on the poverty, ignorance and vulnerability of the peasants the villages. It is sinking the peasants deeper into poverty and deprivation, taking away all that they own in livestock. 

On behalf of the peasants who have approached me, I am drafting a suit against the organization and the auctioneer. I will also  seek the intervention of the administrative and regulatory entities to swing into action against this criminal ring

If you know anyone who has fallen victim of this fraud, kindly advise them to get in touch via phone call, text or WhatsApp.