KENYA: Retired African Inland Church (AIC) Bishop Silas Yego has lost a court case where he has been trying to save his Kileleshwa property over a KSh 143 million (UGX4.8 Billion) Transnational Bank (Access Bank) loan which has since accumulated to KSh 153 million (UGX5.1 billion) on default.
Yego’s fresh bid to save his prime flats in Nairobi city were thwarted by High Court judge Justice David Majanja who ruled there were no new facts that would enable the court to hear the case afresh.
“Like the Court of Appeal held, the plaintiff is indebted to the bank and nothing now stands in the way of the bank exercising its statutory power of sale,” Justice Majanja noted.
The cleric’s company identified as Siro Investments had asked the court to stop the lender from auctioning his apartments worth over KSh 200 million (UGX 6.7 Billion) for a period of four months to buy him more time to repay the borrowed money.
Debt restructuring
Yego said he had engaged the bank on how to restructure the debt after he lost the case at the appellate court in 2020.
The clergyman stated he had requested the lender to dispose off some of his other properties in order to settle debt but it had denied him the chance to do so.
Yego had in 2013 secured the loan to construct 50 apartment units in Kileleshwa.
Five years later in 2019 however, the retired bishop had not repaid the loan prompting the bank to instruct Purple Royal Auctioneers in April, 2020, to recover it through a public auction.
He rushed to court and challenged the move arguing his property had been undervalued and that the outstanding balance was KSh 86 million and not KSh 143 million as stated.
Justice Majanja in August 2020, ruled against the man of cloth noting he should have known the bank had rights to sell the properties if he failed to service the loan.
Source: Tuko News
