Ex-minister Gideon Ndambuki’s hotel put on auction over Sh80 million debt

Former Cabinet minister Gideon Ndambuki is fighting to block the auction of his six-storey hotel in Machakos town over a Sh80 million loan.

In a notice published on Monday, Garam Investments Auctioneers invited potential buyers to bid for the prime property known as Roof Garden Hotel, which is located near Kenyatta Stadium and sits on 0.0389 hectares.

Mr Ndambuki served as Planning and National Development minister during President Daniel arap Moi’s administration. He unsuccessfully vied for the Makueni gubernatorial seat and was later appointed chairman of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) in 2017.

The hotel is set to be sold to recover a debt that the former Kaiti MP owes to Housing Finance #ticker:HFCK.

It has a restaurant, bar, kitchen and cashier’s office among other facilities on the ground floor and guest rooms on all other floors. It also operates a bar on the first floor.

The auctioneer indicated that the title to the property is on leasehold with an annual rent of Sh3,030. The hotel earns a monthly income of Sh1 million.

The hotel is scheduled to be auctioned on February 3 at Garam’s offices in Westlands, Nairobi. Purchasers must pay a deposit of 25 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 Sh1 million.

Mr Ndambuki joins a list of prominent personalities who are battling the auctioning of properties over outstanding debts.

Last week, the family of former Cabinet Minister Njenga Karume asked a Nairobi court to intervene in a bid to stop the auctioning of Jacaranda Hotel in Westlands as Guaranty Trust Bank Ltd (GT Bank) sought to recover a loan of Sh283 million.

Whereas Justice Wilfrida Okwany did not stop the auction slated for January 22, she asked the bank and the family to hold talks to explore the possibility of whether they can come to a mutual agreement. The arrears stood at Sh122,740,533 by last week and the bank was concerned that the amount was still growing.

Regent Auctioneers placed an advertisement in the newspapers inviting buyers to bid for the property as it sought to recover its debt. The judge also directed the hotel to pay Sh4.5 million to the bank as part of the loan’s repayment.

The loan, which he borrowed when he had left politics in 2015, was to finance construction of Sh100 million two-storey, flat-roofed bungalows sitting on a 20-acre forested land known as Entim Sidai.

The rest was to be used to purchase a 94-year-old bungalow built by a Scottish missionary, Dr Albert Patterson, which currently operates as a high-end restaurant.

However, the development of the 12 luxury homes worth Sh1.2 billion fell behind schedule, setting the stage for the default and now the seizure of his property, which he has challenged in another court case.