Is The “Blood” Hotel also the Cursed Hotel?

We need not argue about the Grand Regency saga from positions of ignorance I must say. I had a lunch of a lifetime at the hotel last week during the N’ASA/TASK’s actuarial convention, and indeed, the hotel potrays an image of class and might, being the only deluxe hotel in the country. Here are some of a few interesting issues and traps that MPs and other kenyans have fallen into, blindfolded!

And my list does NOT include the obvious fact that public property must be sold openly to the highest bidder. Not secretly with the transaction finalized in Amos Kimunya’s favourite bar to avoid the attention of other nosy cabinet colleagues.

Firstly it is important to note that the Kshs 2.9 billion paid will NOT go to the public coffers. In fact this is cash that has mostly already been spent in PNU campaigns in the disgraceful general elections of last December. In other words the hotel was traded for party politics.

I would like to point out that this is a deal that was sealed in June 2007 when your “duly” elected president went to beg for presidential campaign funds in Libya. Since then Kibaki has been under such intense pressure from Col. Muammar Gaddafi to honour the deal and Kimunya “accidentally” alluded to during the press conference where he confirmed that the secret sale had taken place after all. And after earlier appearing on national TV to tell Kenyans that the Grand Regency sale saga was a rumour from some bar.

To make matters worse the Grand Regency did not even rightfully belong to Paul Pattni (or Kamlesh Pattni, or whatever you want to call him) in the first place. While he did pay some money to gain control of it, the truth is that part of the purchase price was paid in human blood. The legitimate owners of the hotel were the Aslam family (remember the former majority shareholder and owner of Pan African bank, Mohammed Aslam) who “conveniently” died under mysterious circumstances the day before he was supposed to give evidence in the Ouko commission investigating the still unsolved murder of the late foreign affairs minister?. Aslam’s wife was hurriedly given a pittance in cash to flee the country with her frightened children and forget about the hotel. Which she did.

Other political fires that have been quietly burning for quite a while are now well above boiling point. Top ODM party officials are livid because Francis Muthaura, on instructions from the “duly” elected president, has been transferring civil servants seen to be sympathetic to ODM all over the place. This Grand Regency saga would seem to be the perfect opportunity for them to go for PNU’s jugular. There is no doubt on my mind, based on the information that I have, that ODM are planning something BIG. I have no idea what it is, but this has to be a tense moment for the nation and our infant coalition government.

The words of South African judge Johann Kriegler last week are still echoing in my mind.

The judge said (while hitting out at political parties for sending hecklers to his public hearings at the KICC last week in an effort to swing the commissions’ sentiments in their favour); “Politics is not for sissies.”

How true can it get.