The High Court has ordered a Nairobi-based businessman to pay Sh4.7 million in a ghost golf course project deal.
Environment and Lands Deputy Registrar Edina Angima ruled on Tuesday that Amos Nganjo should pay his clients Sh600,000 and another Sh200,000 by the end of December as part of the Sh4.7 million debt.
She raised concerns about the long time taken to settle the debt from the time of judgment in 2019 but said the matter will come up for mention on January 24, 2022.
The deputy registrar also ordered the defendant to remain bound by cash bail terms of Sh100,000 imposed when he appeared in court upon his arrest on Wednesday last week.
She also ordered the defendant to come up with a more reasonable offer to pay the debt by the said mention date.
Nganjo appeared before court after an arrest warrant was issued for defying an order to settle the debt in a suit that was concluded in 2019.
Nganjo was sued by his clients James Gichuhi and his wife Joan Wairimu seeking a refund of the Sh2.5 million purchase price of the land they paid Nganjo for a project that never started.
Through their lawyer Kenneth Maina, they wanted the contract rescinded between them and Njango since it was long over due and the golf resort project they had paid for had never started.
“My clients are seeking damages for breach of contract and cost of the petition," the lawyer said.
He submitted that the defence lawyer had earlier shared with his clients the debt payment plan, telling the court it was rejected, given that it will take now take 22 months for the money to be cleared in full.
Maina had even doubted the commitment by Ngonjo to pay the money as proposed, noting that the case took a long time to be concluded. It was halted when the defendant sought an out-of-court settlement that they later declined to honour.
Lawyer Nganga Muneneappearing for Ngonjo had argued his client is committed to settling the debt by first paying Sh600,000 promptly, then settling the balance in instalments of Sh200,000 every month.
The arrest came after Ngonjo and two others, namely Ramadhan Maulid Juma and Simon Matara Gichuhi, who are bonafide directors of Loldaiga Country Homes and Golf Resort Limited defaulted in settling a Sh4.6 million debt.
They had been ordered to do so in a civil suit concluded in 2019.
The couple had bought two residential plots, one measuring one acre for Sh1 million and the second a half acre at Sh1.5 million in 2012.
They purchased them after the defendant advertised the sale of plots on a golf course in Nanyuki in same year.
However, the couple was angry, to the extent of filing suit after realising that the project was not being implemented because a golf course had to be constructed first.
They said they only got verbal promises from the defendant that the project would take off. It didn't
Gichuhi had used his pension money to pay the landlord for the ghost project. He also convinced his wife to invest and she did so by obtaining a loan, only to realise later it was a ghost project.
In the judgment delivered by the court presided over by judge M.C. Oundo orders were issued to have the contract between the two parties rescinded.
The court also gave orders for a refund of the purchase price to the complainants of Sh2.5 million, nominal damages of Sh1.5 million for breach of contract and other amounts catering for costs of suits and interests all amounting to Sh4.7 million.
(Edited by V. Graham)
