Judge orders disclosure of John Keen’s wealth in succession battle

The High Court has ordered a disclosure of assets belonging to the estate of the late politician John Keen, as a dispute intensifies over its management and sharing.

The estate is estimated to be worth Sh13 billion.

Justice Aggrey Muchelule ordered five children of the late tycoon (two of them being executors of his Will) to file and serve a full and accurate inventory related to J Keen Investments Limited within 60 days.

The five are listed as Antony Simel, Pamela Soila, Bernard Olonana, Somoire Keen and Rosemary Sanau.

The judge issued the order following an application filed by one of Mr Keen’s sons, Edward Meitamei, seeking information on the assets and liabilities in the name of the late politician between the time of his death and March 8, 2021.

Mr Meitamei said he is a beneficiary of the estate having been given shares by Mr Keen through a written Will.

Mr Keen died on December 25, 2016 and he left a written Will dated December 2, 2015. He appointed Supreme Court judge Isaac Lenaola, lawyer Maina Wachira, and his children Rosemary Sanau and Pamela Soila as the executors of the Will.

The executors petitioned the court on February 1, 2017 for the grant of probate of written Will and the same was issued on April 4, 2017. The grant has not been confirmed.

Mr Keen left a large polygamous family, and a substantial estate. Justice Lenaola resigned as an executor while lawyer Maina Wachira has since passed on.

This left Sanau and Soila as the executors of the Will.

In his ruling on Mr Meitamei’s request for an inventory, Justice Muchelule noted that section 83 of the Law of Succession Act tasks the executors of a Will with the obligation to give a full and accurate account of all dealings with the estate up to the date of account.

“The court or any interested party can request for a full and accurate account of the assets and liabilities of the estate,” he stated.

The judge held that since Soila and Sanau are the executors of the Will of their father, they have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interests of the estate, the beneficiaries and creditors.

“They have to make sure that Keen’s wishes as expressed in the Will are respected and carried out. They are required to manage the estate prudently and appropriately deal with the beneficiaries and creditors in good faith, ensuring that information keeps flowing and ultimately distribute the estate as commanded by the Will,” said the judge.

The court, however, dimissed Mr Meitamei’s request for provision of Sh1.8 million for payment of his Grade Two minor’s school fees and related expenses.

He had asked that the money be directed to come from the J. Keen Investments account or from any other account of Mr Keen.

His daughter, Zola Sinet, had also filed an application seeking Sh4.8 million to pay her fees at an Australian university.

• The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery estimates that 98 percent of people residing in emerging countries, including Kenya, lack access to multi-specialty surgical services.
• The commission further describes this access to the services as including timeliness, safety, affordability for patients and an adequate capacity by providers.
• This gap forms a good starting point for pursuing the implementation of a multi-specialty growth strategy by clinics and hospitals.

It is an inherent ambition for most healthcare facilities to, over time, increase their scope of services in order to serve a wider catchment population whilst providing a broader array of clinical services.

However, the conundrum that most healthcare managers grapple with is on how, where and what specific activities to pursue in order to actualize this desire in a cost effective and, ultimately, productive manner.

The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery estimates that 98 percent of people residing in emerging countries, including Kenya, lack access to multi-specialty surgical services.

The commission further describes this access to the services as including timeliness, safety, affordability for patients and an adequate capacity by providers. This gap forms a good starting point for pursuing the implementation of a multi-specialty growth strategy by clinics and hospitals.

It is important for healthcare managers to digest available datasets in order to elucidate the characteristics of the disease burden surrounding their health facilities. Such datasets are available both internally and externally.

Internally, records of disease profiles attended to in the facility will be of use; especially of cases that eventually required referral to another center due to non-existence of the needed clinical services.

Externally, the Kenya Health Information System is a freely available online database that contains information on disease burden by type and location in the country. Also, there are specialty-wise medical journal publications that bear extensive information on various disease burdens.

As an example, one may establish that a general outpatient clinic in a hospital setting saw many patients with backaches and of these, the MRIs done showed that most of the patients had spinal compressions but were not definitively attended to due to the unavailability of a neurosurgeon or an orthopedic surgeon specializing on the spine.

The next step would be to consider setting up a spine clinic running on specific days wherein patients presenting with such back problems can be booked into. At this stage, a consideration may be made to invite a visiting specialist doctor to run the clinic on those specified days.

It is worthwhile that during this introductory phase, patients are informed on the need to subscribe to a health insurance scheme so as to limit their need for out-of-pocket expenditure and increase the affordability of such highly-specialized care.

As these occur, the healthcare manager should be forecasting on the supportive services that are required along this specialty line and making plans for the accompanying capital and operational expenditure.

If these cases require surgical interventions, this planning should be around ancillary requirements such as the availability of surgical instruments and implants, staffing cadre, rehabilitative services such as physiotherapy and so on. It helps a great deal to involve input from a specialist in the particular field.

Whereas this example covers a surgical specialty, the same data - driven approach can be applied in all other facets of medical specialties to ensure that an iterative and productive growth approach is undertaken.

The writer is a healthcare leader and geospatial epidemiologist

• The High Court has dismissed a suit filed by minority owner of Bluebird Aviation who accused his partners of siphoning more than $1 billion (Sh108 billion) from the airline through tax evasion, fraud and money laundering.
• Justice Alfred Mabeya brought to an end the five-year court battle pitting Adan Abdi Yussuf against three other owners of the 29-year-old airline.
• The judgment came after the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) cleared three shareholders and executives of Bluebird — Hussein Farah, Unshur Mohamed and Mohamed Abdikadir — from financial malpractices after a nine-month investigation.

The High Court has dismissed a suit filed by minority owner of Bluebird Aviation who accused his partners of siphoning more than $1 billion (Sh108 billion) from the airline through tax evasion, fraud and money laundering.

Justice Alfred Mabeya brought to an end the five-year court battle pitting Adan Abdi Yussuf against three other owners of the 29-year-old airline.

The judgment came after the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) cleared three shareholders and executives of Bluebird — Hussein Farah, Unshur Mohamed and Mohamed Abdikadir — from financial malpractices after a nine-month investigation.

The investigation followed a criminal complaint from Mr Yussuf against his fellow shareholders, accusing them of fraudulently channelling massive funds out of the company as part of a money laundering scheme.

Justice Mabeya dismissed Mr Yusuf’s allegations, saying he failed to prove claims of fraudulent accounting, tax evasion, fraud and money laundering.

“In the present case, all that the plaintiff did was to make sweeping allegations without any backing by way of evidence. He only stated that he had carried out investigations and made discovery of the allegations he made,” said the judge.

“The documents that were produced were not authenticated to prove any of the allegations made against the defendants.”

Mr Yussuf, who claims to own 25 percent of the charter airline, argued that more $1 billion (about Sh108 billion) has been stolen and put in offshore accounts and investments in Western capitals after being transported physically out of the country without declaration. He said the three directors were using the airport passes granted for restricted areas in airports to move the billions.

The DCI dismissed the secret movement of cash at the airports, arguing its investigation and probe by Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) found no evidence of money laundering.

The Financial Reporting Centre through the DCI said it failed to detect breaches while tracking the flow of cash in and outside Blue Bird Aviation.

Mr Yussuf claimed that his partners were stashing proceeds from the airline in international banks under Amazon International FZE. But Justice Mabeya said his partners had sufficiently showed that their relationship with Amazon was purely commercial.

“That the plaintiff had failed to demonstrate the directorship or shareholding of the defendants at Amazon or that they had stolen money from the Company and deposited the same at Amazon’s accounts,” he said.

“No faithful director exercising independent judgment would take any of the said measures, none of which are beneficial to the Company. In fact, all the steps taken by the plaintiff were contrary to the success of the Company. They were meant to sound a death knell on the company,” he added.