COUNTY EXECUTIVE HAS PLANS TO BUY TEITA SISAL ESTATE- STATEMENT RESPONSE REVEALS

The County Assembly of Taita Taveta has established that, indeed the County Government has expressed interest in purchasing all shares of the Teita Estate Limited.
This was revealed in a response to a Statement sought by Mahoo Ward Member of County Assembly (MCA), Hon. Daniel Kimuyu on 19th September, 2023, on the alleged interest in acquisition of Teita Sisal Estate Company by the County Government of Taita Taveta.

The response from the Executive read by the Vice Chairperson of the Sectoral Committee on County Public Investments & Accounts, Hon. Lilian Kidali, affirmed that on 2nd August, 2023, the Acting County Secretary Mr. Habib Mruttu on behalf of the County Government wrote a letter to the Company’s managing director expressing interest to purchase ALL shares of the company, citing business opportunities, ability to create jobs for the youth and also the opportunity to for the County to own a huge parcel of land.
In the response to the Assembly, it was established that the estimated cost of the Estate is USD 150 million. The documents sent to the House showed that the County Government asked the Company to avail all necessary due diligence documents of valuation at their disposal for scrutiny and subsequent determination of the correct value, before committing to buy.
Notably, the Statement showed that the purchase and acquisition of the Company was neither within the County’s development agenda nor in the County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) 2023-2027. Kidali reported that the process is at diligence stage, hence once complete, the County Assembly will be involved and the Annual Development Plan (ADP) redone to accommodate the same.

On how the County Government intends to finance the purchase of the company incase all approvals are made, the acting CS, in the response, told the House that, the County will opt to borrow funds from undisclosed sources upon approval by the County Assembly.
The Habib Mruttu-signed response noted that, already the County government has asked the company to furnish the County with 55 due diligence documents on acquisition, including a complete history of business, reason as to why the company was being sold, a copy of the latest annual returns filed at the Companies registry (Sheria House), names and contacts of each persons who is or has within 10 years been a shareholder or investor of the company, a schedule of everything that is included in the proposed selling prices including all products, machinery, equipment, real property and intellectual property owned by the company among others.

The County Government is still waiting to be furnished with the documents before making a decision to acquire the sisal estate.
TMW/DM