Thursday, March 28, 2024

Karume’s Jacaranda Hotel to be auctioned over Sh. 258 million debt

Njenga Karume Hotels: The late billionaire Njenga Karume’s Jacaranda Hotel is set to be auctioned over a debt of Sh. 257.6 million. The hotel is situated in Westlands, Nairobi.

According to a report that appeared in the Business Daily on Wednesday, the hotel is among the few surviving Njenga Karume hotels and businesses that the late politician left behind. It has been put up for auction to recover the huge debt that is owed to the Guaranty Trust Bank.

“The shrewd businessman had, however, also accumulated a debt load that his family and a board of trustees he appointed to oversee his estate have struggled to clear. In his prime, Karume was the biggest distributor of beer maker East African Breweries Limited’s products, a lucrative, long-term contract that earned him billions of shillings over the years,” says the report.

Debts push Njenga Karume’s kids to sell part of Sh. 17.5 billion empire

The auction will be carried out by Regent Auctioneers. “We have been advised by our client, Guaranty Trust Bank Ltd, that you are still in arrears amounting to Sh. 257,645,708.53 as at 5th July 2019. We have set the auction date as 21st July 2019 at our auction mart new Kireita building, Kirinyaga Road, at 11.00am. If you wish to stop the auction, you will have to pay all the debt due together with the interest and costs incidental thereto,” part of the auction notification letter reads.

The Business Daily further reports that the auction notice comes after the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) last year lined up auctioneers to recover value added tax (VAT) and Pay as You Earn (PAYE) arrears amounting to Sh. 153 million owed by the hotel.

“The taxman issued the Jacaranda Hotels Limited with an enforcement notice on January 12, 2018, seeking immediate payment of tax arrears amounting to Sh197 million and on the same day moved to secure goods at the hotel in Westlands, Nairobi, to recover the tax. The matter was settled after KRA agreed to a repayment plan of Sh. 50 million monthly installments and a payoff of Sh. 7.9 million to auctioneers who had already secured the hotel’s property to recover the tax,” says the leading business paper.

Connect With Us

320,545FansLike
14,108FollowersFollow
8,436FollowersFollow
1,880SubscribersSubscribe

Latest Stories

Related Stories