Osumba, former DP candidate, set for auction

Peter Kenneth’s former running mate in the 2013 Presidential elections Ronnie Osumba has fallen in trouble with auctioneers seeking to sell his home in Athi River, Machakos County.

The duo’s joint ticket garnered over 72,000 votes in the polls, emerging fourth after President Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga and Musalia Mudavadi – and a campaign budget of about Sh300 million.

Valley Auctioneers have attached the four-bedroom house in the middle-income neighbourhood and invited bidders in a sale scheduled for September 19. While the auctioneers have not indicated the reserve price for the property, guiding rates for the area place the estimate at just about Sh10 million.

Osumba, who served as the chairman of the Youth Enterprise Development Fund, is listed as the joint owner of the property alongside Vera Akinyi Ogundu.

He left the helm of the affirmative credit provider just two months ago after the expiry of his contract where he helped increase loan repayments to 88 per cent in his final year.

No explanation was provided for the property seizure and the expected auction, but is a pointer to financial distress often associated with a borrower inability to service loans.

It is either the property was bought on mortgage and the repayments are now running behind schedule, or the house was collateralized as security for another loan.

He now joins a growing list of distressed borrowers whose property is being foreclosed, in a broader indication of a struggling economy

Commercial banks are unwilling to extend new loans to the private sector since the enactment of legislation regulating interest rates, in one of the reasons analysts suggest could be behind the soaring default rates on loan repayments.

Several other high-profile personalities are also bathing it out with auctioneers, each citing various reasons including failure by their clients to pay up on time for supplies already delivered or services rendered.

More to follow...