The lender Monday, through Leakey’s Auctioneers, advertised that the 28-acre freehold land located on Kangundo Road, Machakos, is up for sale.
The move risks exposing hundreds of buyers, who had purchased the land and were planning to put up houses, to major losses.
An official at Leakey’s Auctioneers told the Business Daily in confidence that they intend to sell the property to recover the money that the investment company owes the bank.
Who played who
wapi rink ama ni hekaya
I thank God kenyans are reaping their foolishness, a hundred fold.
Hundreds of local Investors are crying foul over their unpaid money owed to them by a local agribusiness Venture.
The project at the center stage is Bethany phase 3 that sits on a vast land in Kajiado County. To join the business, each investor was required to Purchase land for agribusiness purposes with the help of Diamond Property Merchants.
Each customer bought an eighth of land each at a cost of Sh 450,000. Furthermore they were required to remit extra Sh 290,000 for helping to construct and erect green houses erection.
After completion and at the end of every year, each investor was to receive Sh 200,000 yearly.
However, more than 500 members who joined the project are yet to receive the money.
Their financial future in the project now hangs in balance as the appointed supplier Nguzo International ltd is engaged in a tag of war with project owner on who should take responsibility for the loses that occurred on the green houses.
Although Diamond property merchants owns several other such investments, Nguzo intentional admit that for this particular, the investment was not successful following the damage of green houses either by whirl wind or floods which destroyed some of the structures last prompting to the damage of crops.
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Some others got destroyed by locals who invaded the agribusiness land with their livestock.
But what some of the members may not be aware of is that, Losses occasioned by natural disaster such as the once that befell the project are not covered by the insurance industry thus making it a joint loss between the Investors and Nguzo the suppliers of the agricultural equipment and resources as per the Contract.
Due to the losses, the project owner is unable to remit any money to the farmer as no crops were produced, has had to let go of all their Employees and is now dealing with angry investors.
Failure to pay the investors has now inked another pending unresolved problem. While on paper every member of the Kajiado land project owns a piece of land, many of them in that particular project are yet to receive their title deeds for their 1/8 acre each for the land they bought
“We are disappointed that although were promised better deal to make some good money out of the project, it has become an embarrassment and disbelieve. The project has brought financial tribulations because some of us took loans to join it yet there is nothing to show for it”, says one member who feared being mentioned his name as he is also engaged in another phase on the land
Bethany phase 1 project is among the 5 phase’s projects owned by individuals who purchased the land with the help of Diamond property merchant to start agribusiness in a group in Kajiado.
“I was one of the 900 employees that working at Bethany project phase 1 on contractual terms before shifting to moved phase 3 of the 5 phases of the projects by diamond property merchants. I could not stand the challenges of the project and opted to shift”, says Richard Matelong
But supplies whose role is to oversee the day to day management and growth of the farm inputs while the project owner’s role is to provide adequate water and security on the farm. The supplier therefore believes it’s the owner who reneged on the contract when the bore holes dried up and some other structures got invaded by local.
But Diamond property merchants want the supplier to take responsibilities and pay the investors citing that the supplier should have taken more precautions to prevent occurrence of the challenges on the investment.
The Diamond property General Manager Edwin Khiranga admits that there were some delays in having adequate water but he says since May last year the project has had adequate water.
“We had challenges in the Phase 3 because of the huge demand and positive reaction by the market, but we invested money including buying adjacent plots that had boreholes to shore up our water supplies,” he said.
But whilst Edwin explains that there have been payments of Sh 49 million and 50million respectively since the project began, investors have not received the regular payments as had earlier been anticipated in agreements.
According to the information available, Jubilee insurance who was contracted as insure may be visiting the farm for damage assessment.
It’s however unlikely that insurer will pay since the structures were either destroyed by floods, bore holes dried up which are natural disasters rarely insured by the local companies.
“We have met with the management of Diamond and we have also met with investors to gather and I think there’s something that hasn’t gone right. They need to come out and clearly chat the way forward to investors”, says Cofec Secretary General Mr. Stephen Mutoro who registered his disappointment with the turn of events.
A meeting with investors on 16 last month did not bare much fruit especially after the service provider Nguzo International was not able to meet the financial obligations with the investors.
Investors have been asked not to take the law in their hands as the battle between Diamond Property and Nguzo International takes an ugly turn with a case filed with the Commercial courts.
Diamond Property Merchants, a land buying and selling company associated with Tigania East MP Josphat Gichunge, risks losing one of its prime properties after defaulting on a loan from Consolidated Bank.
The lender Monday, through Leakey’s Auctioneers, advertised that the 28-acre freehold land located on Kangundo Road, Machakos, is up for sale.
The move risks exposing hundreds of buyers, who had purchased the land and were planning to put up houses, to major losses.
An official at Leakey’s Auctioneers told the Business Daily in confidence that they intend to sell the property to recover the money that the investment company owes the bank.
“The property will be sold as a block but not as subdivided plots to recover the money Diamond Property Merchants owes to Consolidated Bank. For now, I am not in a position to disclose how much they owe to the bank because of the bank-client privacy issues,” said the source at Leakey’s Auctioneers
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Mr Gichunge, who is one of the directors of Diamond Property Merchants and Tigania East MP, said he is aware of the auction notice and would seek to resolve the matter with the bank.
“I am aware that the Consolidated Bank, which we owe some millions, has gone ahead and placed one of our properties in the newspaper for sale.
“We are in touch with them to resolve the matter,” he said on a telephone interview.
“What is there is that we are going through some financial difficulties that we hope to resolve soonest.”
Diamond Property Merchants’ prime land set for auction - Business Daily
These criminals who con people have never met with a crazy guy who is willing to go to jail after piercing their chest with a long kitchen knife. Some of these conmen are easy to find, utampata walking from an office/bank/restaurant/church to their cars or at functions like weddings and funerals.
Kshs 450,000 is a lot of money to lose
Any idea if the land to be auctioned is royal gardens or ebenezer?
450k + 290k for the greenhouse equals 740k. Na labda ilikuwa loan. It’s very sad what white collar criminals do to hardworking Kenyans and mostly get away with it.
That is the route people should go. I have always advocate for militancy against white collar criminals.
Once a few are thrown off tall buildings by irate clients, hii wizi itaisha
Crazy. If it was a loan then ongezea interest which could make the whole repayment to be Kshs1,000,000. If the people who get conned were to do something more significant than demonstrating in front of TV cameras these conmen would stop doing it.
Personally I don’t play games with my money. I let many many deals escape me because I’m hesitant to put myself in a position that I would have to hurt somebody to make my soul calm.
Only a fool would buy an idea of making such money in agribusiness, in semi arid ukambani.
Sadness of life. those who had bought konza plots thru Diamond property merchants (DPM) and paid, but were unable to pay the financing bank a further 100k+30k lawyer fees, have now been given to Late March to do so or the bank will sell their plots for 300k bei ya jioni. Mind you DPM sold the plots for 450-700k about 7 years ago before It went under. Buying land in Kenya is just too risky.
Page 3 Nation advert by Stanbic bank for the unsold/not fully paid plots owned by DPM