Thursday, July 17, 2008
since I last blogged….politics keep happening
There’s been an entire political scandal since I lost wrote. I mean, I knew it had been a while, but this really puts it in perspective!
So there is a fancy hotel in town, The Grand Regency. It’s fancy. It was built with money that was siphoned from the government in a previous Scandal (I think it was the Goldenberg scandal….might have been the Anglo-Leasing one, though). Anyways, it had to do with government contracts going out for projects that never existed, and payments for constructing a building with 27 floors but it is built with 21 floors (that’s the Times Tower downtown), and for doing all kinds of things that never happen or happened only part-way, etc. Billions of shillings. So the Grand Regency was built with that money by Pattni, a guy who was right in the midst of that former Scandal, and was supposedly in jail for a number of years over it (but he was pretty much out and about) and then was released and said he’d been Saved and founded a church franchise that is raking in billions of shillings. Anyways, because Grand Regency was built with dirty money, the government of Kenya took it into receivership.
A month or so ago, it was revealed that the Grand Regency had been sold to the Libyan government. The scandalous parts are:
- how much was it actually sold for? So first they said 2.8 billion shillings. But then it was maybe actually just 1.9 billion. Or, no, wait, it was 2.8. No, it was definitely 1.9. Or maybe it was sold for 2.8 billion and the government is actually going to receive 1.9 because the rest is already pocketed. It still isn’t clear to me.
- does that represent a fair price? Some people say it was valued at 8 billion. Some people say an entire chain of fancy fancy hotels was sold for 1.3 billion. A lot of people talked endlessly about this.
- who was it sold to? First they said the Libyan government. Then it was just the Qadhafi family. And then it supposedly was just 3 random Libyan guys with mustaches who looked like they had been pulled from their kiosks in Kisumu and told to stand in front of the TV cameras. And then finally the Libyan embassy confirmed that it was, indeed, the Libyan government.
- did the sale go through the proper channels? No. It was sold without getting the express permission of Parliament.
Amos Kimunya, the Minister of Finance, has been forced to step down over the scandal. He was the Minister of Finance for 5 years total, and he had a reputation of being clean and smart. That was part of what seemed so strange about the whole Scandal – it was kind of stupid. But on the other hand, looking back, there were quite a lot of Scandals under his watch, so maybe he wasn’t so squeaky clean.
And that’s my understanding of the Latest Scandal. A new Minister of Finance has been named, the Libyan government owns a fancy hotel in Nairobi, and everyone else in the halls of power are breathing a collective sigh of relief that they didn’t get caught this time.
So there is a fancy hotel in town, The Grand Regency. It’s fancy. It was built with money that was siphoned from the government in a previous Scandal (I think it was the Goldenberg scandal….might have been the Anglo-Leasing one, though). Anyways, it had to do with government contracts going out for projects that never existed, and payments for constructing a building with 27 floors but it is built with 21 floors (that’s the Times Tower downtown), and for doing all kinds of things that never happen or happened only part-way, etc. Billions of shillings. So the Grand Regency was built with that money by Pattni, a guy who was right in the midst of that former Scandal, and was supposedly in jail for a number of years over it (but he was pretty much out and about) and then was released and said he’d been Saved and founded a church franchise that is raking in billions of shillings. Anyways, because Grand Regency was built with dirty money, the government of Kenya took it into receivership.
A month or so ago, it was revealed that the Grand Regency had been sold to the Libyan government. The scandalous parts are:
- how much was it actually sold for? So first they said 2.8 billion shillings. But then it was maybe actually just 1.9 billion. Or, no, wait, it was 2.8. No, it was definitely 1.9. Or maybe it was sold for 2.8 billion and the government is actually going to receive 1.9 because the rest is already pocketed. It still isn’t clear to me.
- does that represent a fair price? Some people say it was valued at 8 billion. Some people say an entire chain of fancy fancy hotels was sold for 1.3 billion. A lot of people talked endlessly about this.
- who was it sold to? First they said the Libyan government. Then it was just the Qadhafi family. And then it supposedly was just 3 random Libyan guys with mustaches who looked like they had been pulled from their kiosks in Kisumu and told to stand in front of the TV cameras. And then finally the Libyan embassy confirmed that it was, indeed, the Libyan government.
- did the sale go through the proper channels? No. It was sold without getting the express permission of Parliament.
Amos Kimunya, the Minister of Finance, has been forced to step down over the scandal. He was the Minister of Finance for 5 years total, and he had a reputation of being clean and smart. That was part of what seemed so strange about the whole Scandal – it was kind of stupid. But on the other hand, looking back, there were quite a lot of Scandals under his watch, so maybe he wasn’t so squeaky clean.
And that’s my understanding of the Latest Scandal. A new Minister of Finance has been named, the Libyan government owns a fancy hotel in Nairobi, and everyone else in the halls of power are breathing a collective sigh of relief that they didn’t get caught this time.
(Beaker is distressed that there has been Another Big Scandal)
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