Visualizing The Pinnacle
The superstructure was to be constructed in Nairobi’s upper hill on a ½ an acre parcel of land. This development would give Kenya the privilege of hosting Africa’s tallest skyscraper with 70 stories and a height of 300 Meters. The project was a joint venture between East African Petroleum products distributors, Hass Petroleum and White Lotus Group (Dubai Based). With an estimated construction cost of about 20,238,000,000(KES)
The three investors contributed ¼ of this amount and had sourced the rest from some Kenyan banks and Afrexim bank who were the main contributors. China state construction Engineering Corporation CSCEC had already started the construction. The excavation was complete and the foundation construction has just begun, a phase that cost an estimate of 1,415,400,000 (KES)
The construction was to be complete on December of 2019 although the hotel would have been completed earlier. Being the only skyscraper in Kenya with a helipad, access to the building would have been easy especially by people touring the Hilton Hotel.
What really transpired
On the 16th February 2018, the developers were given a two day notice to pack and leave the site by the High Court judge Benard Oboso. Benard is a thorough judge who is also responsible for the plastic bag ruling of 2017.
The lease that had been signed between the developers and the Kenya Railways Trust Retirement and Benefits Scheme was declared illegal by the court. Developments were suspended until all pending issues of the land had been fully ironed out. The Railway staff scheme were found guilty of contempt of court while getting into a lease agreement with the developer, this was enough to completely disregard the contract. There was initially a lawsuit against the same land in a dispute where Kenya Railways Staff Scheme and the Trustees of Sheikh Zayed both claimed ownership of the land. All that’s left of what that would have placed Kenya on the African and global map is only an abandoned construction site.
Remarks
Developers were a little too cocksure of winning the case as it would have been a lot better for them to hold back construction until all issues had been fully settled. Now time, money and trust from off-plan investors has been lost, worst of all they might completely lose the land.
If you are investing in Real Estate, don’t get too exited about the uniqueness of your construction, take your time and do your homework. Do not take shortcuts even if your hired experts provide the options, your worse case scenario is serving jail-term, losing money, reputation and or the Property so think about is.
