This archive report was first published on 9 January 2020.
Published on January 9, 2020, a court in Kenya declined to stop the auction of the four-star Jacaranda Hotel in Nairobi, owned by the family of late Cabinet minister and business tycoon Njenga Karume.
The hotel, which has 128 bedrooms and sits on 3.5 acres of prime land in the Westlands suburb, is set to be auctioned on January 22 to recover a Sh257.6 million defaulted loan from Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB).
Trustees of the late tycoon's estate have been given up to January 9, 2020, to pay at least Sh4.5 million to GTB to salvage the hotel from the auction. However, Justice Wilfrida Okwany ordered the facility to pay the Sh4.5 million directly to the bank and not via any other third parties, including the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), by Friday this week.
Target shy KRA is also eyeing a piece of the estate seeking to recover taxes it is owed by the four-star hotel. The taxman had also gone after the hotel first over a Sh95 million tax arrears demand, sending auctioneers to recover the amount in 2019 prompting the trustees to seek court's intervention.
