Cytonn Managers Summoned by MPs Amid Row with Investors Over Kiambu Road Housing Project

The management of Cytonn Investments has been summoned by the National Assembly Public Petitions Committee over a Sh7.8 million-a-unit housing project on Kiambu Road.

This comes after some investors petitioned Parliament raising fears that no work has been done despite paying millions of shillings for the housing project dubbed ‘The Ridge’.

Through Alego Usonga MP Samuel Atandi, Josephine Awuor, Caroline Atieno and Omondi Abonyo petitioned the National Assembly in November on behalf of other investors. 

Appearing before the committee last month, the petitioners pleaded with MPs to investigate the matter in a bid to safeguard their investment.  

The committee has summoned the management of Cytonn this month to shed light on the matter before presenting its report when the House resumes its sittings on February 14th.

The petitioners argue that investors had paid in excess of Sh3.9 million, but the company kept promising that they were finalizing the project.

The House committee heard that investors made an initial installment of 10 percent of the sale value plus a booking fee of Sh50,000. When they demanded refunds due to the slow progress, they were told they would incur a mandatory 10 percent loss on their deposits.

“In September 2019, when many investors began seeking refund, the company announced that it would put the money in its substituent platform the Cytonn High Yield Solution, for one year to earn interest at 18 percent and then start refunding,” reads the petition.

In 2020, the petitioners say, the company began blaming the Covid-19 pandemic and promised to refund the investors in 2021, during which they kept sending statements to show interest was being earned.

“Later, an administrator was appointed and the company continued to experience financial difficulty, and, to-date, nothing has come to fruition with regard to investors’ money, nor has the Ridge project taken off,” the petitioners add.

“Notwithstanding this debacle, the company has ostensibly kept their posts alive on social media platforms on investment analysis to dupe the investors and unsuspecting Kenyans that it is liquid and in optimum operational capacity.”

They claim that Cytonn has been trying in vain to sell off some of its properties and they fear the company might dissolve with depositors’ money. 

They want MPs to compel Cytonn to clarify how they intend to fulfill their agreement with those who invested in The Ridge project, the CEO held liable for the mismanagement, and secure the refund of investors’ money.