- Title: KENYA: : Protesters march over Kenyan-Libyan hotel saga
- Date: 1st July 2008
- Summary: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES VARIOUS OF HEADLINES READING "RAILA SUMMONS CABINET TEAM, AS KIMUNYA SAYS: I WILL NOT QUIT"/ HEADLINE READING "UNMASKED"
- Embargoed: 16th July 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Kenya
- Country: Kenya
- Topics: Industry
- Reuters ID: LVA7THCFZ29YELPGE17PVGP2YUDK
- Story Text: Protests grow over the secretive sale of a luxury hotel at what critics say was a knockdown price.
Kenya's prime minister summoned cabinet colleagues on Tuesday (July 01) to look at the secretive sale of a luxury hotel at what critics say was a knockdown price while protesters demanded the finance minister be fired over the deal.
The Grand Regency deal has stoked national outrage and fuelled tensions in an already fragile coalition government set up in April to end a post-election crisis.
"Kimunya must go!" chanted scores of marching demonstrators, referring to Finance Minister Amos Kimunya.
About 10 legislators were among the 100 or so protesters who marched from the hotel in what organisers said was the first in a series of planned demonstrations in Nairobi.
The saga has pitted ministers mainly from Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement against Kimunya, a loyal ally of President Mwai Kibaki. Kimunya has been finance minister for most of Kibaki's rule since 2003, a time of strong growth.
"We expect them to tell the people of Kenya the truth about the Grand Regency hotel. Number two, Kibaki must walk out of that cabinet meeting and announce to the people of Kenya that one Amos Kimunya is no longer the minister of Finance," said one MP, Ababu Namwamba.
The Regency deal, involving Libyan investors, has added to suspicions of continued large-scale corruption after a series of scandals in east Africa's biggest economy, which foreign businesses routinely cite as a deterrent to investment.
"We want a stop to impunity and we are here and we are going to continue being loud. We must stop impunity from the grand coalition especially if you are sitting as a cabinet minister and this is even mentioned about you... you should have resigned if you were a man of integrity," said another MP, Rachel Shebesh.
"Our government has no time to engage in fraudulent dealings, if they cannot sit down and work out a formula on how everyone of you should get out of the street and start working, then they are playing with a time bomb," said Cyrus Jirongo, another legislator.
Reversing prior remarks the government-owned hotel had not been sold, Kimunya said last week it had gone for 2.9 billion shillings (45 million US dollars) after an offer "too sweet" to refuse.
That price, less than the 4 billion shillings of a 1994 sale price for the hotel which analysts value now at between 4.5 and 6 billion, provoked outrage around Kenya, including from some of Kimunya's cabinet colleagues and anti-graft watchdogs.
The minister says the deal was above-board and fetched the best possible price for the nation.
The Regency had been owned by a Kenyan tycoon of Asian origin accused of being the architect of the so-called Goldenberg scandal that nearly sunk Kenya's economy in the 1990s.
Kamlesh Pattni, who has been tried but never convicted despite multiple probes into the siphoning of some 1 billion US dollars of public funds over bogus diamond and gold exports, handed the five-star, multi-storey hotel to the bank earlier this year.
"I heard that the hotel was sold to foreigners but after some investigations they (the government) have found out that they are not outsiders. The directors are Kenyans, well connected people. They are the ones who bought the hotel, which is public property, which was recovered from the Asian by the government of Kenya," said Jackson Ontegi, a councillor in Nairobi.
But Jacob Meme, a legal officer in Nairobi, says people need to wait until more information about the case is made available.
"People are supposed to wait and get the correct thing. People are demonstrating and if you ask them, it's because of what? They will not tell you it is because of one, two, something tangible, not just street, street.
No!" said Meme.
Late on Monday (June 30), cabinet colleague and Lands Minister James Orengo produced transaction documents that he said showed the Regency had in fact been sold for just 1.85 billion shillings.
"What I wonder is why they are selling it at a low price yet it is something worth a lot of money," said Winifred Kaleche who is a casual worker at the Grand Regency.
Orengo said the Central Bank governor had signed the agreement, and the hotel had gone to a company known as "Libyan African Pan African Investment Company Kenya Limited" with both Libyan and Kenyan directors. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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