Scramble for Jade Collection owner’s Sh7 billion empire

 

The grandchildren of an Eldoret-based businessman want the court to compel him to include them in the sharing of his Sh7 billion business empire.

In the succession case before Justice Stephen Githinji at the Eldoret High Court, Mr Kevin Wakaimba and Mr Ivan Wakaimba want their grandfather, Mzee Samwel Mburu, a father of eight, not to sideline them in the distribution of their extended family’s wealth.

Mzee Mburu’s vast empire, estimated to be worth more than Sh7 billion, is spread out in Eldoret, Nakuru and Nairobi and includes flats, business premises and hundreds of acres of land in the Rift Valley region.

Mr Mburu also owns Jade Collection, a clothing business that has branches in Eldoret, Kisumu, Nakuru and Nairobi counties.

Kevin and Ivan want to be given a share of the wealth, saying they need fees for their university and college education.

Kevin, who was pursuing a film production degree at a university in South Africa, told the court he had to terminated his studies last year due to lack of fees.

Failed to raise fees

His brother, who was training as a pilot in Malindi, was sent home after he failed to raise the fees at the aviation school, the two men told the court. 

They claim that their grandfather started distancing himself from them after their father, Sammy Wakaimba, died. 

Wakaimba died 31 years ago in a road accident at Moi’s Bridge township on the busy Eldoret-Kitale highway. He was 37.

The two said their grandfather lodged an insurance claim on the false position that Mr Wakaimba had no other beneficiary. 

This was despite knowing that his son had left behind a widow, Rose, and two sons, the two men say in their plaint. 

Through lawyer Angu Kiptigin, the two argued that it was unfair for their grandfather to exclude them from the administration of their father’s estate, terming his actions as fraud.

Evicted from father’s farm

The two further argued that their grandfather’s decision to completely lock them out of their father’s share of the family wealth was unfair as it was also denying them the chance to complete their education. 

They have also faulted Mzee Mburu for evicting them from their father’s 100-acre flower farm on the outskirts of Eldoret town, where he was buried.

The grandfather, the two said, later sold the farm and kept all the proceeds. They are now homeless, since their grandfather did not provide an alternative home for them.

“We are the only two sons of the late Sammy Wakaimba,” said Kevin.

They state that they were the sole dependants of the estate of their father and that Mzee Mburu should not have a share of it. 

Justice Githinji was prompted to adjourn the hearing of succession case last Friday after Mzee Mburu, through his lawyer Richard Warigi, said he could not proceed with the succession matter after he contracted Covid-19.

The case will come up for further hearing on July 19.    BY DAILY NATION