Nairobi, March 11 -- Cash-strapped Uchumi Supermarkets has gone silent on the franchising model that had been touted as the route to rescue it from collapse, complicating its recovery efforts.

Mazars Consulting Ltd, the firm supervising the retailer's company voluntary agreement (CVA) plan, says the firm has been quiet on the franchising strategy that was agreed on years back. Under CVA, a company makes a proposal to its creditors to offset debts and picks a supervisor of the plan.

Mazars says in the latest supervisory report on Uchumi that while progress has been made, including settling about 82 percent of the old debts, not much activity has been seen on either the franchising model or convincing the government to rope the retailer i...