{UAH} How Kanu lost KICC, its citadel of power

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How Kanu lost KICC, its citadel of power

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Former ruling party Kanu says it has title deeds to the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi and claims that the government illegally took the building from the party in 2003. Photo/File 

By JOHN KAMAU jkamau@ke.nationmedia.com

In 1997, a Kiambu Kanu official was locked up in a toilet inside Kenyatta International Conference Centre as part of the humiliation that the party meted on those it wanted to discard. A  party meeting was going on but the once-powerful politician had just fallen out of favour.

In this building, men would shed tears, shake and shiver, if summoned by the all-powerful Kanu Disciplinary Committee chaired by David Okiki Amayo.

One of Kenya’s finest architectural master-pieces had become a house of terror; a citadel of party power and intimidation.

That was the story of KICC in the 90s when the difference between party and the government remained obscure. So obscure that even today, Kanu still lays claim to the building whose controversy goes back to 1967 when its foundation was laid.

Initially, KICC was flagged as the new Kanu headquarters by President Jomo Kenyatta in a bid to give the party a new fillip. Before that, Kanu was housed in a dingy building in Nairobi’s Jeevanjee Street (now Mfangano Street). Kanu occupied the four offices of Munshiram Mansion, owned by  Lekhraj Aggarwal,  but for the 11 years it was there it failed to pay the Sh450 a month rent and only paid when it was moving to KICC.

The thinking then was that Kanu might be able to get some funds from renting the new building.

So did Kanu build KICC? That has been the unanswered question.

In June 1974, eight months after the building was opened, the question of its ownership surfaced when Msambweni MP Kassim Mwamzandi asked the Minister of State, Mbiyu Koinange to tell party members whether they still owned the building.

“When that building was at its early stages of construction”, Mwamzandi reminded Mr. Koinange, “we were told that it was going to be the Kanu headquarters. However, it is now being called Kenyatta Conference Centre.”

Mr Koinange, an in-law of Kenyatta, told the country that he has “never doubted” that the building belongs to Kanu. “The centre is the property of Kanu party.  The only thing that everybody should appreciate (is) that Kanu like any other organisation in Kenya borrowed some money from other financial institutions in the country to enable it to build this fine building…(thefore) the centre is the property of all Kanu members.”

And that was the beginning of the confusion about who owned the building.

A few days before Mwamzandi asked for that clarification, Mr. Koinange, when he was pushing for a budget vote for the Office of the President listed six major sections under his docket.

These were; the Special Branch, statutory Boards, East African Community, Provincial Administration, Cabinet, Government Press and Kenyatta Conference Centre. 

The Kanu headquarters building was a new entry in the budget and Mr Koinange did not help with his explanation: “All these sections are coordinated by the Office of the President which is responsible for general policy matters and day-to-day administration.”

It was the first time that KCC, as it was abbreviated then, had been put in the budget. Koinange described it as “an additional department, responsible for organising and coordinating international conferences.”

After Kenyatta’s death in 1978, the department created by Koinange to man the Conference Centre at the OP was shifted to the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife.

The tourism industry started pushing for the centre to be turned into a parastatal. In 1980, Makueni MP Kasanga Mulwa asked Tourism Minister Elijah Mwangale, whether the government had plans to make KICC a parastatal.  In his reply, Mr. Mwangale said there was no such plan because KICC was under the direct supervision of the ministry.

“To assist me in this and to ensure that the centre maintains international standards, I have decided to form a management board – rather than a management committee- which shall be answerable to me in all aspects of the Centre.”

The board which was picked by Mr Mwangale had officials from the Office of the President, Kenya Airways, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Works, Hotel Keepers Association, Kenya Association of Hotel Keepers and Nairobi City Council.

It was then maverick Dr Chibule wa Tsuma who asked Mr Mwangale “to tell us whether Kenyatta Conference Centre belongs to the government or to the ruling party, Kanu.” Few politicians would have dared to ask that question. But Chibule was part of seven radical MPs who had distinguished themselves for taking on the government. (Attorney General, Charles Njonjo) nicknamed them “Six Bearded Sisters)

Mwangale: The government and the ruling party are one and the same thing.

Mr. Midika: Mr. Speaker, the Minister is trying to evade something. …saying that Kanu and the Government are one and the same thing. We do accept that. However, when it comes to the

custodianship of the money, is he telling us that the Vice-President and Minister for Finance, who receives the money, and (Kanu Treasurer) Justus ole Tipis are one and the same thing? Since we know that Tipis is the National Treasurer of Kanu, is he handling the money on behalf of the Kenyatta Conference Centre or is it the Vice President and Minister for Finance (Mwai Kibaki)?

Mwangale told Parliament that money from the rent was paid to the Treasury and that Kanu as a party also submitted its rent to the Treasury. He then added a rider: “Kanu is part and parcel of the government.”

That also did not help in resolving the ownership as a year later, Parliament approved budget for the building.

It was during the Kanu National Seminar held between December 2 -5, 1985 at the Kenya Institute of Administration, Kabete that the 300 delegates resolved to take over their “KICC investment” to generate more money for the party. Other Kanu investments included Press Trust Printing Company, and the Kenya Times Limited Newspapers.

Even as Kanu was plotting to take over the building, the 1986 budget included a provision on KICC. Tourism Minister Andrew Omanga said they hoped to “make sure that KICC has enough facilities. We would like it to be equipped sufficiently to make it competitive.”

In 1989, Kanu managed to have the land and property on LR 209/1157 transferred to it but even after the transfer the Government continued to maintain the building.

This emerged in 1994 when documents were laid in Parliament on a subcontract entered by the government for some electrical works at KICC. While answering the question, the Minister for Public Works, Prof Jonathan Ng’eno said they had “requested the Treasury to get us that kind of money.”

Raila Odinga: If my memory serves me right, the Kenyatta International Conference Centre is supposed to be the property of Kanu. To the best of my knowledge, this matter is under dispute…if that is the case according to the Government, what business has the Government to sign a contract with a contractor to do work at KICC, if it actually belongs to Kanu?

Prof Ng’eno: I think the honourable Member’s memory serves him right. It is true that KICC is the property of Kanu. But at the time this contract was given, the controversy as to who owned the KICC had not arisen.

Mr Maoka Maore:  Is the Minister in order to state that by the time the contract was being given, which is 1994, his Ministry was not aware that this was Kanu property, while on June 2, 1993 there was an affidavit by the Kanu Secretary General that he was aware that the KICC belonged to Kanu, and that the Commissioner of Lands issued a title deed on May 25…”

Still the matter of KICC remained unresolved. “How can we forever continue pretending that a political party or a pseudo-political actor can appropriate a public resource like KICC and pretend that, it is their property,” asked Dr Mukhisa Kituyi in October 1999.

In June 19, 2002, the Minister for Roads and Public Works, William Morogo, decided to set the record straight: “The KICC was built from 1967 to 1974. The KICC was built by the Government …and reverted to Kanu in 1989. The government did not sell the building to Kanu. It gave it to Kanu.”

Mr Sifuna:  The minister is misleading the House. I was a Kanu MP when the President ordered Messrs. Nassir, Kibaki, Biwott and myself to look into the possibility of grabbing KICC. We were ordered to change the figures and transfer that building from Government to Kanu without compensation. I even objected and was overruled…

Deputy Speaker:  Order Mr. Sifuna. Where is the evidence…where can we find that evidence?

Sifuna: I am the evidence! I was there!

A month later Mwai Kibaki decided to put the matter to rest. “Kanu has stolen KICC because I was the Minister for Finance at the time when KICC was constructed.

This project was funded by Kenyan taxpayers. It was built as a public institution. But it has been stolen and appropriated to a political party, which now uses the money it collects as rent from it to oppress Kenyans. I am sure there will be no other future government that will accept that kind of crime.”

In 2003 after Kibaki came to power, he issued an executive order that saw KICC return to the public. Kanu lost its citadel of power -- where it towered over other parties.

Ocen  Nekyon

Democracy is two Wolves and a Lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed Lamb contesting the results.

Benjamin Franklin