Dear Houseowners
As rumors are spreading these days, we would like to clarify recent event and changes about the management of the Mararo court.
Over the last week, a conflict between SEDCO management (our management company) and our care taker, Arisa has emerged. SEDCO has hired Arisa to be the SEDCO representative in our compound and therefore, we believe that this conflict has to be sorted between the employer and the employee. Also note that as an interim committee, we cannot legally hire people as we are not (yet) a registered company, and therefore cannot fulfill the legal requirements of an employer.
Mararo Court owners have delegated the transition from the developer as well as the interim management of the court to the interim committee, who therefore has the right and obligation to act on behalf of the owners when needed.
Given the rumors spreading, Catherine and Mwendwa called for an emergency interim committee meeting to sit down with SEDCO to understand what was going on and to re-evalutate our collaboration.We tried to call as many interim committee members as possible and only Florence could join on such a short notice.
We believe it is pretty unprofessional to wash dirty linen publicly, and do not want to share any accusations here. But given the written information we came across, the interim committee felt that trust between us and Arisa has been broken to an extent of no return and have shared this feeling with SEDCO. Given the fact that Arisa is still on probation, SEDCO can and will legally release him of his duty by the end of the month.
We discussed consequences of this change with SEDCO, who propose to operate without a care taker, as during the day 3 SEDCO employees are on the ground and can inform the head office any time in case of an issue. SEDCO is confident that they can run the court in this way without quality loss, reducing our service costs by 23 000 KES a month.
As the interim committee, we have the mandate to manage the court to what seems to us to be the best options to insure safety and good quality of life with the means we have. There are decisions that have to be taken by a small amount of people who have the information and know what is going on, rather than consulting a large group of uninformed people, especially when it comes about preserving the reputation of people that are working for us. The house owners meeting is not a court to judge upon behavior and misbehavior of SEDCO employees.
From the insulting e-mail and phone call, we have understood that some house owners are not happy with the current management. Catherine, Mwendwa and Florence are happy to step down from the interim committee under following conditions :
- A detailed plan, including the description and responsibility for each process for management of the court is submitted in a writing and is judged professional enough to ensure a smooth transition. This plan should also include a plan of action with deadlines for handing over from the old interim committee to the new one as well as the handing over of the house-owner company from the developer.
- The exiting interim committee members are legally discharged from any liability.
- A house owner meeting that reaches the quorum accepts the new plan of management and handing over from the developer.
If we understand correctly, some owners would like to discuss this today. We will not be present at this meeting, so that you can discuss optimal management and come up with a new management plan. We are still work on making all necessary document available on this site (including receipt for all the costs) and hope to be able to make everything available to you by the end of the week. Please note that most of our service providers have a 2 months termination clause.
Unless there is a clear taking over, supported by a house owners meeting with quorum, we feel it is our responsibility and duty to ensure the safe and efficient management of the court, as per the mandate that was given to us from the house owners meeting on the 9th of May. We will therefore not step down before a new viable management option has been proposed and is voted by the house owners meeting with quorum, as it would leave the court in vacuum and allow for mismanagement.
Clearly, we are still in a transition, learning how to run the court smoothly and getting all necessary procedures to take over the house owners management company from the developer. We hope that we can manage all this before Christmas (as some of the interim committee members are in weekly contact with the developer) and have a first official annual house owners company meeting early January, during which we can evaluate the management and share some lessons learned. Also during this meeting an official management committee has to be elected to replace the existing interim committee.
We are sorry to hear about all the mistrust, and truly hope that this page will allow you to understand better the hard work we do as volunteers next to our full time jobs.
Catherine, Mwendwa and Florence
