Why Tuju's property sale failed to attract bidders

Former CS Raphael Tuju addresses the Press at his Entim Sidai residence in Karen, Nairobi. [File, Standard]

The planned auction of former Cabinet Secretary Raphael Tuju’s Entim Sidai Wellness Sanctuary property in Karen failed to take off on Tuesday after no qualified bidder showed up.

The auction had been scheduled for 11 am but more than an hour later, aborted after no prospective buyer had presented the required deposit to qualify as a bidder.

Tuju, who had arrived to witness the sale together with his team, sought confirmation from Garam Auctioneers on whether the auction had officially been called off after the prolonged wait.

A representative of the auctioneer company said the process had aborted after no bidders turned up.

“The auction has not taken place because none of the people who attended has qualified to be a bidder. You are supposed to have a deposit to show your seriousness,” said the auctioneers’ representative.

Tuju disputed the proposed auction of his Dari company’s property; according to the auction notice put the property's measure is approximately 20 acres.      

Tuju also sought to know whether the auction would occur later in the day after no one showed up by 11 am but the auctioneers confirmed that the process had been called off.

“The auction is officially closed. We have waited for bidders long enough and now we have closed,” he said.

According to Auctioneers Rules, an auction of immovable property should proceed continuously within permitted hours.

If an auction is interrupted or postponed, the law states that the process cannot simply resume later. Instead, it requires a fresh public advertisement and a new 14-day waiting period before a new auction can be held.

Bidders are also required to register to bid and often deposit a specified percentage of their intended bid.

“We have been waiting to see who the bidders are and up to now, we have not seen the bidder and in their (auctioneers) own admission, the auction process has aborted,” Tuju said after the official closure of the planned exercise.

Tuju said he had attended the auction against the backdrop of a long-running dispute with East Africa Development Bank (EADB) and the auctioneers over the attempted sale of his property.

Tuju stated that Dari Limited and EADB are in several legal proceedings concerning the property, questioning the decision to proceed with the auction.

"The matter of that sale is currently the subject of litigation at the Auctioneer's Tribunal and the High Court," said Tuju.

He named several pending cases, including Supreme Court case SCPT/E012/2023, Dari Limited versus East African Development Bank (EADB), which he said remains before the country's highest court.

The row goes back to a Sh1.2 billion loan EADB gave Dari Limited in April 2015 to fund a commercial property project in Karen, secured against Entim Sidai, Tamarind Karen and Dari Business Park.

Tuju's firms fell behind on payments within a year, and after a London court ruled against them in 2019, the debt, pushed up by interest and penalties, has since grown to about Sh4.5 billion.

EADB sold Dari Business Park at auction in October 2024 for Sh450 million to Ultra Eureka Limited, a firm linked to businessman Jackson Kiplimo Chebett.

Dari Limited got letters from the Registrar of the Supreme Court dated Thursday, August 20, and Friday, August 21, showing the case was still before the court and no ruling had yet been made, said Tuju.

He also named High Court Commercial Division case E636 of 2024 and criminal case E042 of 2025 at the Milimani Law Courts as part of the many cases tied to the properties.

At the centre of the row is whether Tuju met a condition the High Court set to protect Entim Sidai from sale.

He claimed the parties were already in court over an alleged 2024 auction involving one of his properties, which he said raised questions over the date of the auction, the identity of bidders and the bid bonds.

“We were not able to trace the date when they did it. They were not able to trace the bidders, the OBI. And they have not been able to produce the bid bonds that bidders participated in that date,” he said.

Tuju also challenged the valuation used in the earlier auction, claiming it was based on a 2015 valuation report.

He argued that the property valuation used for an auction should fall within the period prescribed by law.

The former CS said the dispute remained before the court, adding that his decision to attend the latest auction was meant to establish what would happen to the property.

Further, he used the moment to raise concerns over what he termed impunity in the banking, auctioneering and legal sectors, saying many Kenyans risk losing property through questionable processes.

“Nothing is as sensitive as grabbing people’s properties through tricks, using the courts, using auctioneers, using lawyers,” Tuju said.

He further alleged that authorities had previously mounted an intimidating operation at his premises, claiming that about 100 hooded police officers arrived at about 1 am.

 “I don’t know whether there’s another secret one. We’re going to be there every time they do this kind of thing,” he said.