President Uhuru Kenyatta was clad in a navy blue suit, white shirt and a red tie when he took to the podium to deliver his speech for the 2019 Jamhuri Day celebrations at Nairobi’s Nyayo Stadium.
He often wore dark coloured suits on serious occasions, such as his 2013 inauguration, and several high-level engagements with his foreign counterparts and other important bureaucrats.
On the 56th Jamhuri Day, the President meant business.
Midway through his speech, he revived a difficult debate that taxpayers had over the years unsuccessfully tried to win – public servants using public projects to line their pockets.
Mr Kenyatta directed then Attorney-General Paul Kihara Kariuki to begin drafting the Conflict of Interest Bill, which he hoped would lock public servants from doing business with the government, and have their families declare their wealth.
Fast-forward to March 26, 2021, when construction of the Nairobi Expressway, a project whose importance President Kenyatta had on several occasions stressed to the public, was in high gear.
On that day, Rose Wamaitha Ng’ote was registered as the sole owner of Edge Worth Properties Ltd, inheriting all shares from Ropat Trust Company Ltd.
Not long after, Edge Worth Properties surrendered its land to Cale Infrastructure Construction Company Ltd – the toll road’s contractor – for the extraction of sand to be used in the project.
Cale Infrastructure was hired under a public-private partnership model, which would see the private firm invest Sh88 billion and recoup its investment by collecting from the several tolls installed along the 27.1km road.
Blocking government officials
A tax dispute has now revealed that Ms Ng’ote and Ropat Trust were all along proxies for Mr Kenyatta’s family, at a time the sitting President was vocal about blocking government officials and their close kin from enrichment through public projects.
The Nation could not establish the exact amount of money that the Kenyatta family earned through the sand deal, or specific quantities of the construction materials extracted from the land.
But a Tax Appeals Tribunal case indicates that in 2022 alone, Edge Worth Properties declared dividends payable to its sole shareholder, Enke Investments, as Sh1 billion.
Corporates usually set aside between 35 per cent and 55 per cent of their post-tax profits to pay dividends. That means that Edge Worth Properties could have earned revenues of between Sh1.8 billion and Sh2.8 billion in 2022 alone.
Mr Kenyatta’s spokesperson, Kanze Dena Mararo, did not respond to our queries on the possible conflict of interest in the Edge Worth Properties-Cale Infrastructure business, despite multiple follow-ups in the last two weeks.
Cale Infrastructure also did not respond to our queries on how it narrowed down on Edge Worth Properties as a supplier, and whether it was aware of the ownership.
A section of an elevated expressway in Nairobi metropolis.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
Enke Investments asked Edge Worth to offset loans that the latter had issued to its parent firm and hold onto the change until issued with further instructions.
Enke Investments sits at the top of the food chain in the Kenyatta family business empire. The firm was incorporated on April 26, 1989.
Former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta, her son Muhoho Kenyatta and Goodison Trust Corporation are listed as the owners of Enke Investments Ltd, each with 1.333 million shares.
Mr Kenyatta’s spouse and former First Lady, Margaret Wanjiru Gakuo, holds two sets of shares in Goodison Trust Corporation.
The first batch totals 253,300 shares, which past Business Registration Service (BRS) records indicated were held in trust for her brother-in-law, Muhoho Kenyatta.
The second batch Ms Wanjiru holds totals 190,100 shares.
Mr Kenyatta’s children, John Jomo Kamau Kenyatta and Ngina Kenyatta, each hold 253,300 shares.
Mama Ngina Kenyatta at a past event.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
Goodison Trust Corporation was incorporated on August 24, 2010.
After Cale Infrastructure was done extracting sand, Edge Worth Properties arranged to level the land so that it could plant hay.
Edge Worth Properties considered the cost of levelling its land as a business expense when calculating the taxes due to the KRA, which later contributed to the tax dispute.
In a first assessment of Edge Worth Properties’ books of accounts, the KRA found nothing suspicious.
But after taking a second bite at the cherry, Caesar told Edge Worth Properties that the land levelling costs should not have been counted as a business expense.
At the time of the KRA’s investigation into the Kenyatta firm’s books, Ms Ng’ote was listed as the sole shareholder.
The KRA deemed this to mean that Ms Ng’ote was issued with the loans, which it deemed to be fringe benefits that should have been subjected to Pay as You Earn tax.
The KRA issued a demand for Sh249.2 million in unpaid taxes in July 2024 after partially agreeing to an objection that Edge Worth Properties had raised.
That demand forced Enke Investments to do what it had been avoiding by padding its ownership structure with proxy shareholders – step into the light and be seen.
Edge Worth Properties challenged the KRA’s demand at the Tax Appeals Tribunal on August 23, 2024, and filed documents to show that Ms Ng’ote was only holding the shares in trust for Enke Investments.
Edge Worth Properties stated that Ms Ng’ote inherited the trustee role from Ropat Trust Company Ltd, another company associated with the Kenyatta family.
While official records indicate that Ropat Trust is owned by Robert Kimani Ndung’u (24,999 shares) and Patrick Kamau Gacheru (one share), and has appeared in other businesses owned by the Kenyatta family.
Ropat Trust owned 5.37 per cent of NCBA Bank, but has since exited the list of shareholders. A foreign entity with a near similar name, Ropat Nominees, owns 22.5 per cent of NCBA, and also previously held shares in Edge Worth Properties in trust for Enke Investments Ltd.
A view of the Nairobi Expressway crisscrossing Nairobi City in this photo taken on December 25, 2021.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
Ropat Nominees also owns Southbrook Holdings. Southbrook Holdings and former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta are entangled in a land ownership battle with a Gatundu family.
In that tussle, siblings Dickson Muiruri Njoroge and Esther Nyokabi Njoroge have sued Southbrook Holdings in a bid to reverse the company’s purchase of a 1.5-acre land opposite the Kenyatta family home in Ichaweri, Kiambu County, from their mother.
The disputed land hosts apartments, which are occupied by General Service Unit (GSU) officers tasked with guarding the Kenyatta family’s Ichaweri home.
Interestingly, Ms Ng’ote was a founding shareholder and director of Southbrook Holdings in 2016, before she was replaced by Ropat Nominees.
Southbrook Holdings paid Sh20 million for the land, and the siblings argue in court that the firm did not seek their consent before entering into a sale agreement with their mother, Virginia Wairimu Njoroge.
In the Edge Worth Properties case before the Tax Appeals Tribunal, the firm argued that the KRA was being unfair by conducting two similar audits covering the same financial period (2018-2022).
Edge Worth Properties further stated that the land was levelled because the pits left behind after sand excavation were dangerous and were to be filled, regardless of what the land would be used for later on, hence the consideration of those costs as a business expense.
The KRA had maintained that the levelling was done as part of the planned hay growing exercise, hence could only be considered a business expense later on when earning income from the hay farming venture.
Muhoho Kenyatta at a past event.
On February 28, 2025, the Tax Appeals tribunal agreed with Edge Worth Properties that Value Added Tax could not be claimed on income from the hay farming venture, as that was yet to be made.
The KRA had also demanded tax on the Sh1 billion dividends, insisting that official records only recognised Ms Ng’ote as the sole shareholder of Edge Worth Properties.
But Edge Worth maintained that the trustee declaration it presented alongside several other documents, indicating that Ms Ng’ote was just a trustee, were enough evidence of Enke Investments’ ownership of the company.
An aerial view of the Nairobi Expressway.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
Under section 7(2) of the Income Tax Act, a company controlling at least 12.5 per cent of another company is exempted from tax on dividends.
Once again, the tribunal agreed with Edge Worth that Enke Investments had been proven to be the beneficial owner and was exempt from tax on the Sh1 billion dividends on account of section 7(2) of the Income Tax Act.
The verdict on ownership also ended the KRA’s tax claim on shareholder loans, as Edge Worth Properties had lent the money to Enke Investments, not Ms Ng’ote.
Edge Worth Properties is the second Kenyatta family-owned business to face claims from the taxman since 2022, when the Kenya Kwanza regime assumed office.
In April, the High Court quashed a Sh384.5 million tax waiver that the KRA initially granted during the merger of NIC and CBA Banks, which became NCBA Bank. The waiver was quashed following a case filed by Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah, but NCBA vowed to appeal that decision.
The bank had in 2023, filed a separate court case challenging demands from the KRA for over Sh900 million in taxes related to the NIC-CBA merger.
Edge Worth Properties and Gituamba Stones Ltd are the Kenyatta family-owned businesses in the extractives industry.
The family has over decades invested in multiple industries, including agriculture, real estate, financial services, hospitality, education, media,
