Lucas Barasa
1 July 2008
Nairobi — Lands minister James Orengo Monday said that two of the three directors in the firm that bought Grand Regency Hotel in a secret deal are Kenyans.
The minister gave the name of the firm as Libyan Arab African Investment Company (K) Ltd.
A number given as that on the identity card of one of the directors is 6104260, which the Nation traced to the Electoral Commission of Kenya roll as belonging to Mr Abuga Kennedy Kaunda.
Details of the ID card show that he was born in 1965 and is a registered voter in Lang'ata constituency.
The deal was also sealed in the presence of two other people whose passport numbers were given as 298071 and 001428.
"The Grand Regency Hotel certificate of title and transfer by the chargee is dated June 20, 2008. The declared value and purchase price was not Sh2 billion as has been said... It is Sh1,850,000,000, far below what has been the talk in public," he said.
Mr Orengo said Attorney General Amos Wako, who is the legal government adviser did not sign the deal, and that the buyers represented by three directors meant "the transfer was not between the Government of Kenya and Government of Libya."
Wetang'ula, Aden, Makokha and Company advocates represented the vendor - the Central Bank of Kenya - in the transactions. Mr Orengo said the same law firm that acted for CBK in the deal had acted for the bank before.
The fact that the three directors who represented the said Libyan firm did not indicate their names in the transfer document was suspicious, he added.
"The directors' pictures are on the document. Their faces do not seem like Libyans to me. Two of the characters are Kenyans," said Mr Orengo.
The firm's name shows it was incorporated and registered in Kenya, said the Ugenya MP, while the transfer document indicates that its registered office is in Nairobi.
Prime city area
Mr Orengo said the registrar of lands had erred in the transfer document and first put the price of the land and the hotel building as Sh2.5 billion but later cancelled and put Sh1.85 billion "without endorsing the cancellation".
The Sh1.8 billion for the land, he added, was too little as it lay in a prime city area.
Mr Orengo said he would be appearing before a ministerial committee formed by Prime Minister Raila Odinga and a parliamentary committee headed by Nambale MP Chris Okemo Tuesday to shed more light on hotel deal.
The Finance and Administration committee comprises ministries of Finance and Justice and Constitutional Affairs and the AG's office.
Mr Okemo heads the Finance, Trade and Tourism committee, which has been investigating the hotel's status.
However, Mr Orengo said he would only make a final decision after consultations with the Government.
"I will not act on my own. I have taken some steps which I will disclose after appearing before the committees," he said.
It is Mr Orengo who first blew the whistle last Thursday on the sale of the prestigious hotel.
A day later, Mr Kimunya, who had all along denied that the hotel had been sold, announced that Grand Regency had been sold to the Libyan Government at Sh2.9 billion, a figure he said, that was too good an offer to be refused.
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