Economy

New twist in auction of Sh3bn Kenyatta kin land

ngengi

Businessman Ngengi Muigai. FILE PHOTO | NMG

The controversy surrounding the auction of a Sh3 billion estate belonging to President Uhuru Kenyatta’s cousins has deepened with the High Court owning up that it does not have the original consent order, which paved the way for the sale the property by a bank over an outstanding loan of Sh70 million.

Deputy registrar of the High Court Civil Division Lydiah Mbacho has written to the police who have been called in to investigate the consent order signed in court on May 4, 1992.

It is through the consent order the KCB Group #ticker:KCB was allowed to execute its statutory power of sale the 443-acre land under coffee in Kiambu, which had been offered as security to recover its monies.

But Benjoh Amalgamated Ltd and Muiri Coffee Estate — owned by businessman Ngengi Muigai — have maintained all through there was no “consent in the first place and therefore the sale of the land was illegal”.

A photocopy of the said consent that has been relied upon for the last 26 years has raised serious questions about its acceptability.

READ: Ngengi Muigai renews fight for Sh3 billion farm

The purported consent order was set aside by Justice Erastus Githinji and reinstated by the Court of Appeal.

The prime land was sold to Bidii Kenya Limited by KCB on the strength of the consent.

The revelation by Ms Mbacho that there is no trace of the original consent throws the dispute into a limbo as it exposes the top lender. Benjoh — through its managing director Kung’u Muigai — has maintained for the last 25 years the consent order was a forgery and it relied on manufactured accounts to illegally sell the land.

Police will now question the bank officials over forgery.