The High Court has allowed auctioneers to sell Moi era Minister Gideon Ndambuki’s Roof Garden Hotel in Machakos over Ksh80 million debt.
The money is owed to Mortgage firm Housing Finance, which moved to court seeking orders to have the six-storey hotel auctioned to recover the debt.
The former Kaiti MP wanted the property sold to Machakos Teachers Sacco instead, but High Court David Majanja ruled that the court could not change the terms in the contractual agreement.
“The plaintiff has stated that he paid Ksh4.6 million and not Ksh5 million which amounts to prima facie default. Having admitted that he has not settled the arrears as agreed in the consent order, the bank is now entitled to exercise its statutory and contractual remedies,” said Justice Majanja.
Read: Moi-era Politician Hosea Kiplagat’s Karen Home To Be Auctioned Over Ksh378 Million Debt
Ndambuki currently serves as the chairman of the National Social Security Fund and formerly served the Moi government as the minister for Planning and National Development.
The hotel nets a monthly income of Ksh1 million, according to documents presented in court.
Unless Ndambuki moves with speed to rescue the hotel, the hammer will fall on September 29 at Garam Investment’s offices in Westlands, Nairobi. Purchasers must pay a deposit of 10 percent in cash or a banker’s cheque at the fall of the hammer and the balance in three months. They are also required have a bidding deposit of Ksh1 million.
Ndambuki unsuccessfully vied for the Makueni County senatorial seat under the Wiper Democratic Party banner but failed in the nominations stage in the run-up to the 2013 General Elections in Kenya. He also vied for the gubernatorial seat in 2017 but lost to the incumbent Kivutha Kibwana.
Educated in the US, he was an employee of the Commercial Bank of Africa in the 1980s, and the Managing Director of Trade Bank between 1986 and its collapse in 1993.
Ndambuki becomes the second Moi-era politician to have his property put up for sale in the last two weeks, after Hosea Kiplagat.
Kiplagat’s Karen home was put up for sale over Ksh378 million debt owed to the Bank of India.
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