Current Capital Markets Authority (CMA) chairman James Ndegwa has appointed Paul Murithi Muthaura, the former CMA CEO as the chief operating officer (COO) of ICEA Lion Insurance, a firm associated with the former.
The post was recently created to accomodate the lawyer, who has been out in the cold without a job since he left CMA in December 2019. Mr. Muthaura takes the reigns at ICEA Insurance, having had no insurance or any private sector operations experience.
Under his regime, CMA is considered to have recorded some successes such as listing of the NSE and bringing orderliness to brokers. However, he also had a very stinky record such as letting a few banks take control of the CMA, the chairing of CMA by a market participant happened under his watch, and during his tenor investors lost tens of billions in CMA approved products such as Imperial Bank and Chase Bank Bonds, Uchumi and Mumias shares, Genghis Money Market and Amana Monet Market Funds.
CMA also spent hundreds of millions of tax payers monies hiring foreign consultants from London, Australia and JoBurg to churn out totally useless products such asset backed securities, Development REITs, futures exachanges, ETFs, gold exchanges, in the name of innovations.
Read: How James Ndegwa Has Been Cartelling Money Markets Through CMA
This appoint also comes as a conflict of interest, as Ndegwa is the owner and chairman of ICEA Lion Insurance, and has served together with Muthaura as the CEO.
Worse still, the Insurance company runs the ICEA money market fund, an arm regulated by the CMA. As experts would argue, CMA as currently constituted does not regulate the ICEA money market, but instead protects it.
ICEA Lion General Insurance made an underwriting profit of Ksh283.4 million last year.
Muthaura has worked with the CMA for 14 years, and his appointment is seen as a way of keeping him inside CMA through the underwriter whose owner is the chairman of the regulator.
Read: CMA Chairman James Ndegwa Accused of Conflict of Interest in Market Regulation
James Ndegwa is affiliated to three money markets funds – ICEA money market fund, NCBA money market fund, and Stanlib money market fund.
Muthaura will start serving in the newly created position on May 1