So … how RICH is RAILA AMOLLO ODINGA?
The
sudden ostentatious display of wealth by Raila Odinga has left many
baffled. Unknown to the public, Raila is a fabulously wealthy man with a
personal fortune estimated to be in excess of Kshs. 7 billion.
Read
how the man who wants to be Kenya’s next president acquired his wealth
which includes investments in the lucrative petroleum industry and in
manufacturing.
Raila
Odinga’s big break came in 2001 soon after he led his party, NDP, into a
merger with Kanu, the then ruling party. As Energy Minister in Moi’s
government he was introduced to the family of Sheikh Abdukeder AlBakari,
one of the richest families in Saudi Arabia with interests in petroleum
drilling, petroleum exploration and export in the Middle East, Asia,
USA and Africa.
Through
the Saudi contacts, Raila was initiated into the lucrative world of oil
business and soon enough he had joined the league of gig independent
oil importers via his firm Pan African Petroleum Limited.
Industry
sources say that one of the things that helped Raila make a quick buck
in the oil business was a concessionary petroleum deal he struck with
the Al Bakri Group where he was not only incorporated as a silent
partner in the local arm of Al Bakri International but was also supplied
with petroleum products from Saudi Arabia at subsidized prices which
his firm would sell in the market at normal prices.
That way, Raila was able to deftly beat the competition in oil business by occasional price undercutting.
While
still Energy Minister, Raila re-established and nurtured his links with
the Libyan government of Colonel Muammar Gadaffi where again he not
only did good business in oil importation but also got substantial
material support during the 2002 general elections.
Besides
supporting Raila’s political causes, the Libyans also played a key role
in stabilizing Raila in the oil business in a couple of ways. Industry
sources say that between 2001 and 2002 when Raila served as Energy
Minister, he received at least three consignments of petroleum products
at very low prices which were later sold locally at market prices.
The
overall turnover from the three Libyan consignments is reliably said to
have been in the region of over half a billion shillings, a tidy sum of
money in any language, enough to ensure that one crosses the Rubicon
once and for all.
Reliable
sources say that Libyans bankrolled the Narc campaign with some US$ 3
million (about Kshs 210 million), thanks to Raila’s good contacts in the
oil-rich land of Gadaffi. There is no doubt that if Raila becomes the
ODM presidential candidate he can count on massive financial support
from the Libyans once more.
Besides
Libya, Raila enjoys good links with the South African government of
Thabo Mbeki while in Nigeria he is known to have strong links with
Olosegun Obasanjo, who was a close friend of Raila’s late father
Jaramogi.
That
Libyans, South Africans and Nigerians had enough confidence in Raila to
channel campaign funds through him although he himself was not a
presidential in 2002 is an indication of how highly regarded he is in
some international circles.
Evidently,
he could certainly count on even more enthusiastic support from his
international contacts should he become the ODM presidential candidate.
For
Raila, the linkage between politics and business went much deeper than
petroleum business. It is significant that the Odinga family business,
Spectre International Ltd, acquired the then state-owned Kisumu Molasses
Plant soon after Raila started politically cooperating with Moi.
Raila
has consistently argued that the acquisition of the molasses plant was a
pure business deal “which had nothing to do with politics”, but his
critics point out at the coincidence between the time his family
acquired the parastatal and Raila’s shift of political alliance. It is
highly unlikely –indeed one may even say impossible-that the Moi
government would have sanctioned the Kisumu Molasses Plant deal at the
time if Raila had not become an ally of Moi’s.
Former
commissioner of Lands Sammy Mwaita offered to sell the 240 acres on
which the Kisumu Molasses Plant is built to Spectre International on
January 11, 2001 at a price of Kshs 3.6 million at a time when Odinga
started working closely with Moi. By June of the same year, Raila was
appointed to the cabinet and made Energy Minister.
Significantly,
Spectre International had applied for the same land in a letter of
February 18, 1999 but the request had been rejected by the government at
the time.
Titles
were prepared in favour of Spectre International on February 3, 2002
for a 99-year lease backdated to September 1, 2001 and the Odinga family
was ready to laugh all the way to the bank.
When
the Odinga family started the process that led to the acquisition of
the Kisumu Molasses Plant in 2001, Raila had already established good
business contacts in South Africa. Energem Resources Incorporated, an
international firm quoted at the Toronto Stock Exchange, had been
looking for an investment opportunity in Kenya for a long time and the
Kisumu Molasses Plant appeared just right.
Soon
after taking over the plant from the government, Raila struck a
lucrative deal with Energem whereby the Canadian firm bought 55 per cent
of the Kisumu Molasses plant. Sources say that the Odinga family was
paid over US$ 5 million (about Kshs 420 million) to relinquish the
control of the molasses plant. The Odinga family had paid only Kshs 3.6
million for the property.
The
Canadians also ploughed in millions of dollars to rehabilitate the
plant and it is today one of the largest manufacturing concerns in the
country employing hundreds of people and producing at least 60,000
litres of industrial ethanol for local consumption and export.
Ethanol
from the Kisumu Molasses Plant is used as a fuel additive in east and
Central Africa. Among other products coming out of the plant include
yeast, carbon dioxide alcohol and related industrial products.
A
valuation of the plant carried out three three years ago placed the
Kisumu Molasses Plant at US$100 million (Kshs 7 billion). With the
Odinga family owning 40 percent of the plant, putting the family’s stake
in the plant in the region of Kshs 7.8 billion. The remaining five per
cent shares in the plant are owned by a development trust on behalf of
the local community.
Besides
Kenya where Energem is in partnership with Raila in the Kisumu molasses
plant business, now renamed Kisumu ethanol Plant, other African
countries where Energem’s presence is significant include Sierra Leone,
Sao Tome, Congo Brazaville, Angola. Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC), Chad and Central Africa republic.
Raila’s wealth at a glance
Company/Property
|
Estimated Worth
|
Spectre International Limited (the holding company for Kisumu Ethanol Plant)
|
Kshs 7 billion of which Odinga family owns 40 per cent whose value is approximately Kshs 2.8 billion
|
East African Spectre (the gas cylinder manufacturing plant founded by Raila’s late father)
|
Kshs 500 million
|
Raila’s family home in Karen Nairobi
|
Kshs 50 million
|
Runda House
|
Kshs 15 million
|
Pan African Petroleum Company (the firm through which the Odinga family imports and distributes petroleum products)
|
Has had a turnover in excess of Kshs 500 million
|
Scheming that changed Raila’s fortunes
By
the time Jaramogi Oginga Odinga died in January 1994, the Odinga family
could have been described as just another average middle class family
struggling to make ends meet on meager resources.
East
Africa Spectre Limited, the family business flagship, was teetering on
the verge of a precipice, thanks to political interference leading to
bad business and crippling debts.
Raila Odinga’s house in Runda estate was a typical middle class house neighbouring that of self-exiled publisher Pius Nyamora.
But
all that suddenly changed in 2001 when Raila shifted political
alliances, ditched the opposition and teamed up with President Moi’s
Kanu to form what was then known as Kanu-NDP merger.
Soon
thereafter, he was appointed Minister of energy and turned a new leaf
in his life. With his friend Mark Too, then one of the most powerful
personalities around Moi’s state house, holding his hand, Raila was
quickly introduced to the world of big business from which he has never
looked back.
Indeed,
looking back at the kind of fortune Raila managed to accumulate as well
as the business links he established during the one year or so he was
Energy minister, one comes to the inescapable conclusion that contrary
to the conventional wisdom prevailing then, Raila’s rapprochement with
Moi was a pure business decision. The man may have made calculated moves
knowing only too well that without good money even the best politician
might not go very far in achieving his or her dreams.
It
is thus not surprising – nor is it by accident – that as Raila prepares
himself to make his most serious bid for the presidency, he stands out
as one of the richest politicians in the country with a personal fortune
estimated to be over Kshs 4 billion besides reported investments in
real estate in South Africa and Dubai.
Raila,
a calculating schemer, could not have failed to notice the most common
denominator between all the three politicians who rose to the
presidency; money.
Jomo
Kenyatta may not have had tones of money when he became president
because he had the benefit of being associated with independence and
nationalism. However, when he became president, he moved quickly to
amass wealth which he used effectively to sustain himself in power.
His
successor, Daniel arap Moi was already a very wealthy man-though
discreetly so-when he became president in 1978. And throughout his
presidency, Moi used money as his primary tool of political control.
When
Kenneth Matiba challenged Moi in 1992 and came second in the
presidential elections, it was clear that part of Matiba’s most
formidable arsenal was an apparently inexhaustible war chest. Without
the kind of money he had at his disposal, there is no doubt Matiba would
not have come that close to kicking Moi out of state house.
Another
serious challenger to Moi was Mwai Kibaki who came second in the 1997
presidential race. Again Kibaki, like Matiba before him, was not only
wealthy in his own right but had a retinue of rich supporters around him
who ensured that his campaign machinery was financially well oiled.
It
is against this kind of a back ground that Raila must have made the
conscious decision in 2001 to drop all pretensions, embrace Moi and make
as much hay as he could while the sun shone for he knew well that money
is a politician’s best friend, especially one who aspires for the
presidency.
Source:Daily Post
