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Archive for January 8th, 2010

Pattni gets the last laugh in Grand Regency saga

Posted by jambonewspot on January 8, 2010

Laico Regency hotel in Nairobi. File

Laico Regency hotel in Nairobi. File

The Central Bank of Kenya has written off from its books and categorised as “irrecoverable” Sh1.5 billion that was advanced to one of the key companies linked to the Goldenberg scandal, closing yet another window for recovering billions of public money lost through the fraudulent gold export scheme.

The move to cancel the outstanding amount owed by Exchange Bank Ltd follows last year’s controversial sale of the Grand Regency Hotel, which was the only asset charged as collateral for the loan — at Sh3.1 billion, an amount that fell short of the unpaid loan balance.

The sale of the five-star hotel (now Laico Regency) evoked public outrage and ended in the appointment of a commission of inquiry, which concluded in November last year that Central Bank (CBK) “did not realise the best value for the hotel.”

CBK says, in its recently released annual report, that Exchange Bank, which received an advance payment of Sh13.5 billion in 1992 in a contract for supply of foreign currency worth $210 million, had repaid part of the loan while other amounts were offset against deposits that were held by the bank at the time of its collapse. “The balance of Sh1.5 billion has now, with the sale of the hotel, been extinguished from the books of the bank,” says CBK governor Prof Njuguna Ndung’u in the annual report that is set to be presented to the Minister for Finance Uhuru Kenyatta.

Although just a tip of the Goldenberg iceberg, Sh1.5 billion is big money by Kenyan standards that can, for example, finance the entire recurrent budget of the Office of the Prime Minister and others for a full financial year. It can also finance the construction of about 2,500 primary school classrooms at an estimated cost of Sh600,000 each. The report states that the loss “was already fully provided for” in CBK’s books in which it was classified as an impaired loan, adding that the sale of Grand Regency, which was the only asset charged as security for the loan, makes the balance “irrecoverable.” The Central Bank did not respond to our queries on the matter.

Significantly, the Justice Majid Cockar commission of inquiry into the sale of the hotel which has been at the centre of the multi-billion shilling scandal for the past two decades observed that CBK could have realised better value for the facility based on prices that were quoted in an earlier auction bid advertised in 1994.

The Cockar report — which was handed over to President Kibaki but is yet to be made public — says one bidder, identified as Hames Watts, was willing to pay $60 million (about Sh4.5 billion at current rates) for the hotel in the sale that was advertised in both local and international newspapers.

The amount coincidentally equals the Sh4.5 billion loan balance for which Grand Regency Hotel had been pledged as security. The Cockar commission termed sale of the hotel through a private treaty to a Libyan firm, Laico, as having been a “flawed process” that may have led to gross undervaluation of the hotel since the same price could have been earned even if the sale had been made 13 years earlier. “When inflation and the general trend of property values over that time is considered, it should be clear that CBK did not realise the best value for the hotel,” the inquest concluded.

Dubious transactions

The Exchange Bank deal is one of many dubious transactions that CBK entered into in the early 1990s in a desperate bid to secure foreign currency at a time when export earnings had dwindled to a trickle and the World Bank and IMF had frozen aid to the country.

Another commission, headed by Justice Samuel Bosire, concluded in a 2006 report that Kenya’s economy could have lost a total of Sh158 billion in the Goldenberg Scandal through a web of transactions that involved 487 companies and individuals. The scam was based on a government policy of promoting international trade by granting tax-free status, and sometimes subsidies, to commercial enterprises involved in the export of goods. But as Justice Bosire observed, prominent politicians and businessmen in President Daniel arap Moi’s Kanu regime took advantage of the scheme by faking gold and diamond exports against which they received bonus, fraudulent payments from CBK.

Attempts to recover the funds from companies and individuals who were key players in the scam have proved futile as most have mounted legal hurdles in the form of court injunctions and constitutional reviews that have either delayed the cases or seen judgements made in their favour.

The Sh1.5 billion write off however puts CBK firmly in the spot, given that Justice Cockar commission’s conclusion that the “secret and hasty” sale of Grand Regency could have yielded a below market price for the hotel.Analysts also questioned why Central Bank appeared to be in a rush to declare the debt irrecoverable even before the Cockar report is made public.

“It is premature for CBK to give up on this debt considering the main architects of the scam are still in Kenya and within reach of the law,” said Mr Mwalimu Mati, the chief executive of the Mars Group which advocates for good governance and transparency.

Mr Kamlesh Pattni, who was named as a key player in the scam is understood to have surrendered Grand Regency to CBK in a ploy for amnesty from prosecution in the Goldenberg cases.

The government has, however, denied entering into such an arrangement. Senior counsel and former MP Paul Muite said it was against legal process for CBK to write off the amount while a case involving a third party is still pending in court.

Source: Business Daily

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It’s a tight race for boys’ schools in city

Posted by jambonewspot on January 8, 2010

As jubilation over good performance in last year’s KCPE ebbs out, anxiety is setting in as candidates await to be told the secondary schools they will join.

For male candidates who wrote the exam in Nairobi, getting a place in the few public boys’ schools in the city is even more difficult.

Ms Beatrice Kori, a director of the Le Pic schools in Riruta Satellite, says the predicament of school choices for parents with male candidates has haunted them for over a decade.

Ms Kori, who served as a teacher for over two decades before retiring from Makini School in 1990, suggests that the available provincial schools be upgraded to national schools to cater for the overwhelming number of boys who sit the exam in Nairobi.

“Parents can also unite and build boys’ schools to ease the situation,” she added.

Reports indicate that pupils who scored 400 marks and above in the 2008 KCPE examinations were disgruntled as they could not understand how they ended up in lowly district or harambee schools, while others with far less marks in other districts joined better schools.

With over 200 districts countrywide, a national school can only pick one student per district — and in some cases none — according to the current quota system, leaving Nairobi’s top boys to fight for places in Starehe, Lenana and Nairobi School.

Provincial

The top boys provincial schools in Nairobi include Aquinas, Dagoretti, Upper Hill, Jamhuri and Jericho.

Ms Milcah Asanga, a parent whose son, Kevin Ondeko, attained 412 marks in last year’s examination is concerned that the girls seems to have a better deal.

“I would rather find a boarding school outside Nairobi than enrol him in a city day school,” she told the Saturday Nation.

“In Nairobi, we have to work harder to get the same slots in national and provincial schools,” her son Kevin said, adding that he would prefer to get admission to a boarding school.

Another candidate, Lewis Maina, from Le Pic School, who scored 412 marks, attributes the disparity in the quality of the schools to disciplinary issues in boys schools.

Mr Stephen Njoroge, the school’s headmaster, says that the high number of boys sitting the examination also contributes to the cut-throat competition.

“Expanding the schools is the only solution,” Mr Njoroge said.

Sister Agnes Kariuki, the headmistress at Our Lady of Mercy primary school in South B, concurs that city boys are disadvantaged as their schools are fewer compared to those of girls.

Anxiously

The best girl in 2008 at the school was admitted to Pangani Girls whereas this year’s top boy, David Karingithi, who scored 382, waits anxiously for his admission letter.

Sr Agnes says parents are forced to look for alternative schools upcountry if their children get admission to provincial day schools.

Most of the girls’ schools in Nairobi are boarding schools and handle a large number of students.

And as provincial schools adhere to their admission quotas, pupils who perform well in provinces like Nairobi, which lack well established provincial schools, lose out further.

The quota system that was introduced in the mid-1980s has been criticised for failing to reward merit by requiring provincial schools to admit 85 per cent of their students from their localities.

In the coming weeks, parents dissatisfied with their children’s secondary school placement will visit principals in “trophy” schools to beg for places in prestigious schools while others will even resort to bribery.

The selection to the country’s national and provincial schools has sparked debate on equity in education, after public primary schools posted poor results in the exam last year.

In the 2009 KCPE examination, more than half of the top 10 students nationally were from private schools.

Poor infrastructure has been described as one of the factors that is ailing public primary schools.

Unethical

Education minister Sam Ongeri has accused private schools of unethical exam registration practices, including double registration of candidates in order to ensure their children sail through to the coveted provincial schools in a particular province.

Some parents have been found to enrol pupils in high cost private schools in Nairobi and other areas and later register them for the exam in schools in rural districts.

To address the challenge of double registration in different centres, the national examiner plans to introduce the use of birth certificate numbers and introduce photographs for KCSE certificates for every candidate to track their movement and to guard against impersonation.

As the boys await their admission letters this week, they will be crossing their fingers in anticipation joining their schools of choice.

Source: Daily Nation

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Air Force pilot’s widow tells of her family ordeal after the 1982 coup bid

Posted by jambonewspot on January 8, 2010

INSET:Maj Mutua in a plane’s cockpit before the coup attempt of 1982 and his widow Becky (centre) with her children. Photos/FILE and CHRIS OJOW

INSET:Maj Mutua in a plane’s cockpit before the coup attempt of 1982 and his widow Becky (centre) with her children. Photos/FILE and CHRIS OJOW

In any account of military heroism and pathos, there is little to match this one. The life of the most experienced and senior most pilot of a trio selected by the rebels, in part, because of his enviable reputation with the aircraft, took a hit from which he never recovered until his death in 2005.

Becky Kahaki Mutua, his widow, remembers him thus: “He was born to be a soldier. Were he alive today, I am very sure he would still be a soldier, or so he would prefer.

“He re-entered civilian life against his will and never adjusted to it. For 10 years, he had a lucrative career as a Kenya Airways pilot. Yet he walked away from it to do nothing. He was obsessed with the military.”

To do nothing? Well, to chase his terminal benefits from the Armed Forces, of which he died without seeing a penny. In between, he drank too much as he and his ex-Air Force colleagues, mostly now flying for the national career, engaged in endless banter about military politics and intrigues.

The saddest smile

With a melancholy voice and the saddest smile you can ever see, the mother of three says: “You know the good life of an airline pilot. Dave gave it away to file and chase a wrongful dismissal case — HCCC No 548/95 — against the Armed Forces. It is he who was calculating what every terminated pilot should get.”

It was obvious he was trying to continue his engagement with the Armed Forces. He had never been able to come to terms with his fate, the one that began when he brought the wheels of his F/5 to a stop at the Laikipia airbase on the noonday of August 1, 1982, its bomb racks empty, sure that he wore a badge of honour before anybody who called him to account.

Becky was his second wife. Like that of so many soldiers in the aftermath of the coup attempt, his marriage to Hellen, the first, ended in separation and then divorce. With Hellen, a native of South Africa, he had two daughters — Venita and Letisha.

Without an income during his long incarceration at Naivasha, Hellen and the small children took refuge at the house of Mutua’s childhood friend, Alex Muthusi, at Nairobi’s Harambee estate. It is there that he found them after his release, and it is there that he started trying to adjust to life without uniform.

But the pressures of prolonged joblessness took a heavy toll on the displaced family — and their hosts as well. Mutua left jail in April 1983 after spending seven and a half months there. He then embarked on a six-month odyssey navigating the corridors of the Department of Defence to obtain his clearance certificate. At some point during this period, Hellen left for the UK, taking Venita and Letisha along.

The family never reunited. After finally getting his termination letter, which acknowledged his good discipline and professional skill, he headed for the only place that promised an immediate possibility of income — Nairobi’s Wilson Airport. But he was a military pilot and had to convert to civil aviation.

Says a flying school instructor at Wilson Airport: “To convert from one type of aircraft to another, you need to do a type rating exam and that means flying the aircraft. You also need to do an instrument rating to determine if you can fly in what we call instrument meteorological conditions.
“For a single-engine aircraft for any of these examinations you are looking at about $100 (Sh8,000) an hour and $200 Sh16,000 an hour for a twin-engine plane. The number of hours can be as many as will satisfy the examiner.”

Mutua needed several tens of thousands of shillings to jump over this hurdle at a time when he was, to all practical purposes, a beggar. But somehow, with the help of friends, he was able to raise sufficient funds to obtain a civilian licence and get himself a job with Swift Air, where he flew light planes.

He did freelance jobs with other operators and was finally able to raise enough money to travel to the US to train for his air transport pilot’s licence.

He returned in early 1984 and was immediately employed as a pilot by Kenya Airways.

Late in the same year, he met Becky, then working as a ground hostess with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. To anybody with better luck, this should have marked his turnaround. Unfortunately, it only briefly did before the ghost of his dead military career reared its immortal head.

Becky remembers: “We met and fell in love, and it was not long before we started living together. From his circle of friends, I gleaned that there had been another woman, but each time I asked him about it, he kept quiet and then changed the subject. He seemed very uncomfortable about that matter. However, I never doubted his commitment to me.”

He struck her as “quiet most of the time, talkative when drunk and very sharp.” She adds: “I admired his intelligence.”

Together, they raised their three children — Loraine, Dorothy and James. They lived at Nairobi’s Buru Buru estatte, but, as their financial fortunes improved with the good job at Kenya Airways, they bought a house at Lang’ata.

Becky soon left her KLM job and tried her hand at business, going to South Africa frequently to sell curios. She could afford it, because as the wife of an airline pilot, free tickets were regular.

Mutua made a steady rise in his career, starting off as a first officer on the Fokker Friendship. By the time he was resigning 10 years later, he was a first officer on the Airbus A310.

At that time, Kenya Airways was awash with freshly recruited ex-Kenya Air Force pilots. They formed a tight brotherhood and always socialised together.

Children’s birthdays were especially cherished occasions, and the old buddies used them to make merry. Caroline, daughter of Capt John Baraza, grew up fondly calling Becky mom. Her own mother died in 2003. To this day, they are close.

Watching her husband closely, Becky formed the opinion that he was an airline pilot on the outside and a hardboiled soldier on the inside. For why were his favourite topics whenever he was drunk always military ones?

And why was his pride mortally wounded, to a point of getting into stupors, whenever he recalled the treatment he received at the hands of Naivasha prison warders?

“Long after the deed, he continuously made an issue of the humiliation he suffered at Naivasha,” recalls Becky. “He said the warders beat them in the head with batons and referred to them in derogatory terms. He never tired of talking about the humiliation which, he noted, stopped only after he was screened, proved innocent and made a prosecution witness against Bramwel Njereman, his captor.

Even then, he was kept in jail until the end of the court-martials.”

With increasing alarm, Becky perceived that her husband was completely unable to let go of his previous career. She felt helpless to do anything about it, nor could she find anybody who could. And Mutua’s drinking increased in direct proportion to his obsession. It couldn’t go on like this forever. And, all of a sudden, he stopped going to work. He didn’t even report that he was unwell; he just stopped.

Recalls Becky: “Capt Reuben Morani, then the chief pilot of Kenya Airways, called Dave and asked him why he was not going to work. Dave replied: “Don’t worry about me, I am already working for Nasa”

Nasa is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the US government, the agency responsible for the American space programme. Captain Morani was so alarmed with what he had just heard that he went to see Mutua immediately. Betty says the Captain was “very fond of Dave and he came to see him filled with distress.” The distress grew with every passing moment of their conversation.

“David,” Morani said, “please proceed on leave. I will help you.” According to Becky, Capt Morani personally filled the leave application form and approved it. Mutua merely signed it. So he proceeded on a three month leave during which Becky, the family, and not least Capt Morani and all his colleagues, hoped he would get hold of himself and avoid tipping over the precipice. He didn’t. When his leave ended, he was in poorer shape.

According to Becky, a distraught Morani made a last ditch effort to salvage him. He told him: “David, I want you to resign. I fear you could get sacked and if that happens, you will lose your benefits. Ten years of your life will be lost. Let that not happen.” Mutua did as advised and tendered his resignation and sure enough he made a clean break with Kenya Airways.

But he left in his wake sorrowful colleagues who loved and cared for him.

Now he embarked fully on chasing his benefits from the military. In 1995, he filed a case in the High Court enjoining all his colleagues who had similarly been terminated. But being jobless, he soon started running out of money. The erstwhile supersonic pilot had tragically cast away a dream job to array himself against a justice system whose wheels sometimes turn once every decade or more.

“That is when our life started going downhill in earnest,” says Becky. In 1996, he started ailing. He was in and out of hospital for much of the next two years but at the end of 1997, he was admitted to the Metropolitan Hospital in Buru Buru. During this stint in hospital, he suffered a mild stroke, but he seemed to recover fully. In 2005, he was admitted again to the Cottage Hospital in South B suffering from meningitis. This time, however, the odds were against him and he succumbed to a heart attack on 12th September.

“Venita, his first daughter with Hellen, came for her father’s funeral and I met her for the first time,” says Becky. We thereafter became close friends and she has come visiting with her British husband since. I have not yet met Letisha, however.”

Maj David Mutua’s pilot friends came together to foot all his funeral expenses. And to the dirges of the Salvation Army, the religion of his father and not the bugles of the military’s last post, he was buried on his father’s farm in Masinga, Eastern Kenya, aged 43.

Becky Mutua’s has been a long journey of love, hope, heartbreak and unbending faith. “I am a born-again Christian and I have prayed over this matter everyday for 25 years. That people unknown to me, without my knowledge or prompting, have come up with this story is proof that God works in mysterious ways and that he has not abandoned me and never will.

“My children are suffering a lot because I cannot afford college fees for them. If only the Government can pay Dave’s terminal benefits, I can help them. And Jimmy, our son, might fulfil his dream of becoming a pilot like his father.

“What Dave did on August 1, 1982 and what is happening now is for me contained in Chapter 6 of the Book of Esther in the Old Testament — ‘That same night, the king could not get to sleep, so he ordered the official records of the empire to be brought and read to him.’

“The part they read included the account of how Mordecai had uncovered a plot to assassinate the king. The king asked: “How have we honoured and rewarded Mordecai for this?”

His servants answered: “Nothing has been done for him.”

Mr Gachuhi is the director of East Africa School of Journalism: roygachuhi @yahoo.com

Daily Nation

 

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