President Kenyatta’s cousin Ngengi Muigai has lost the ownership of 443 acres of land estimated to be worth more than Sh3 billion.
This is after he lost an appeal seeking to bar Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) from auctioning the property he used as security for loan borrowed 29 years ago. Court of Appeal judges Roselyn Nambuye, Asike Makhandia and Kathurima M’inoti unanimously ruled that the bank had a right to auction the land.
“Benjoh cannot therefore argue that KCB exercised its right of sale over the wrong property. The said property had been charged to secure the loan and was sold upon default. In our view, it was within KCB to choose upon which property to exercise its rights over,” the judges ruled.
Muigai had taken the Sh18,675,000 loan in 1988 after the United States International Development (USAid) offered to lend cash to Kenyans under the Rural Projects Enterprise Programme through local banks including KCB to start a flower export business. He secured it by the 443-acre piece of land.
He, however, defaulted the repayment of the loan, prompting KCB to order for auction the property at Sh13.1 million. What followed were a series of legal battle between Ngengi and the bank, which culminated to KCB selling the property to Bidii Ltd for Sh70 million in 2007.
Ngengi through his firm Benjoh has been seeking to quash the sake of the property by KCB, but the court of appeal on Friday ruled that the bank was right to auction the land used as security for the loan.
How did somebody managed to…
How did somebody managed to get 443-acres of land in Kiambu. Kiambu is one of the most densely populated place in Kenya.
Majority of Kenyan borrowers…
Majority of Kenyan borrowers pay back their loans as stipulated in the agreements while a handful people don’t pay back for various and in many cases dubious reasons.
This is the consequences of default when you decide you are above the law and you deliberately ignore your obligations thinking you will use your influence and stop a bank from recovering its money. 18.6M was a lot of cash in 1988 and I believe 19 years later (2007) when the farm was sold by KCB the bank may have easily earned well over shs 200M in both interest and penalties normally accrued during that period in default.
My observation is KCB may have lost probably over shs 130M after recovering shs 70M from the auction sale. Why didn’t KCB therefore pursue the matter further and file another suit against the borrowers in order to recover the deficiency after the short sale? In this case attach the borrower’s other personal assets instead of writing off the balance of the loan at the cost of KCB share holders. This is a mwananchi bank and this is why I am concerned. Ngengi Muigai is remembered by many people of our generation having bankrupted the giant Mackenzie Dalgety Company which was like Microsoft Corp of my time. I am therefore not surprised that Ngengi Muigai has never been capable of paying for anything.
Just another thief whose 40…
Just another thief whose 40 days are up.
When the largest piece of…
When the largest piece of property you have is a 40×80 plot, then figures like 443 acres or 3 billion dont make any sense. My next big project is a 50×100 going for 600k which i will pay in 5 years.
If ur grandparents never…
If ur grandparents never acquired or fought for land of the free which means acquire whatever you can,whenever you could its called inheritance thats what my auncle acquired. Just get a life. You dare call it 40days….