The lies Abuga told Kacc to cover up sale

By James Anyanzwa

CBK Secretary Kennedy Kaunda Abuga colluded with Governor Njuguna Ndung’u to fraudulently sell the Grand Regency Hotel.

The Cockar Commission established that Mr Abuga misled the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (Kacc) that the bank was transferring the hotel to itself.

The commission also determined that Abuga approved and supported the filing in court of a Registration of Settlement, whose terms he knew CBK did not intend to honour.

This was because while all these were going on, CBK was arranging to sell the hotel through Uhuru Highway Development or under its chargee’s power to Laico.

"In the entire transaction, Abuga as an advocate, took fairly contradictory positions, which raise serious questions about his true motives," says a report on the commission’s findings.

The commission learnt that Abuga’s presence in the Lands Office for lengthy periods until the registration of transfer of the hotel in favour of Laico was highly inconsistent with that of an ordinary advocate discharging a professional duty of this nature.

"His presence at the Lands Office was meant to impose undue pressure and influence for a speedy and secretive registration, given his rank and position at CBK," says the report.

The commission revealed that the extent of Abuga’s personal involvement extending to personally conveying the valuers of the Lands Department in his private car to the Hotel and then back to the Lands Office in an official CBK car went ‘far beyond mere facilitation of the transaction.’

It was also established that the preparation and recording in court of the Consent Orders in HCCC No.589/1999 to which Abuga was an active participant, was done casually and recklessly, resulting in gaps and basic contradictions thus facilitating telling of lies to a judicial officer in an attempt to correct the mistakes.

"From his evidence, the sale of the hotel, at the management level of CBK, was handled exclusively by the Governor and himself," says the report.