The state has been temporarily barred from taking over the management of embattled Ekeza Sacco.
Eleven members of the sacco have challenged the decision to change the management committee.
In a ruling on Friday, the High Court stopped Cooperative Development commissioner Mary Mungai from installing the new committee at Ekeza.
Through lawyers James Mamboleo and Danstan Omari, the members said if the court failed to stop the commissioner, the affairs of the sacco would be liable to neglect, plunder and wastage. This would severely ruin the value of members’ investment, they said.
“The management of the sacco is about to be overturned whimsically by the commissioner, thus leaving its affairs in an uncertain state and open to loss and plunder,” they argued.
According to the members, Mungai used the sacco’s special general meeting convened on February 21 to institute a dramatic and inexplicable change.
The current management committee comprises chairman David Gakuyo and seven others.
Mungai appointed a five-member interim committee headed by Charles Mage.
Mamboleo said members have not been given the report on the findings of an inquiry launched into Gakuyo’s activities.
“The action of the commissioner will expose us to irreparable damage,” the court documents read.
They also said Mungai’s major scheme was to engineer a regime change at the sacco and take hold of the affairs for an undisclosed reason.
“If the state’s illegal and unwarranted actions are allowed to reign, the membership of the sacco will be disfranchised and miserably disadvantaged,” they said.
The case will be heard on Wednesday.