Few would appreciate the impact of a regime change more than the ‘club of 29’ thought to have been close to retired President Mwai Kibaki. Through TransCentury, the elite businessmen, who include Michael Waweru, a former Kenya Revenue Authority commissioner-general, were the face of success. Other prominent personalities include Eddy Njoroge, a former KenGen managing director, and Jimnah Mbaru, the current chairman of the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Though they were individually successful in their respective careers by 1997 when they formed their chama, it is under President Kibaki’s administration that their collective fortunes soared. Biggest investment The crisis at their firm, which is a separate legal entity, may not reflect on their personal finances, but how times have changed. Earlier this week, Mauritian lender SBM Bank Kenya announced plans to liquidate TransCentury’s biggest investment, East African Cables, for its failure to repay a Sh285 million loan. This amount is exactly what the firm booked in profits in 2006. It would seem like a small amount to default on, considering the profile of the men behind TransCentury and whose troubles can be linked to the policies of the Jubilee administration. It is under President Uhuru Kenyatta that Kenya has reported the fastest rate of new power generation. Millions of households have also been connected to electricity since 2013, nearly tripling the connectivity. The twin events should have been a boon for EA Cables, which invested heavily in capacity expansion in anticipation that Jubilee would implement its manifesto to connect 100 per cent of households to the grid by 2022. Yesterday, the company pled its case in public after the suspension of its shares from trading at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) on Monday. “The company has continued to actively engage all lenders and has made significant progress to complete the remaining phase, which includes the debt with SBM Bank Kenya Limited,” wrote Virginia Ndunge, the company secretary. Besides the loans extended by SBM, the firm has other debts in excess of Sh2 billion for which it has had to renegotiate repayment terms. Equity Bank, which also recorded the fastest growth around the same time as EA Cables, came to the rescue of the cable manufacturer by buying loans that had either fallen due for repayment or were already in default. It had also sought and was granted debt forgiveness amid the financial crisis that is threatening […]
