Lorien directors sacked, members to be screened

A NEW BLOOM: Above is the new Board of Directors of Lorien Ranching Company. Shareholders have been advised not to pay any monies to the old directors or anyone at all until further notice. PHOTO/COURTESY.

It is feared that millions of shillings worth
       of shares bought by land-hungry wananchi
        in the controversial Lorien Ranching Company in Nyahururu may be like the proverbial payments to witch doctors.

The fear comes in the wake of a shareholder-initiated clean-up of the 42-year-old company that owns some 11,000 acres of land in Rumuruti division, Laikipia County. Thousands of shareholders are yet to be settled in the farm.

The clean-up started with a complete overhaul of the company’s board of directors in an election that was presided over by a high-powered team from the State Law Office, on June 3 this year.

   The election was conducted during the company’s first ever Annual General meeting in 20 years over which three chairmen and two directors had died at different times. The meeting was held  at the Nyahururu stadium. A Legal Notice convening the meeting was read out by an Assistant Registrar of Companies, Wilson Rading, who assisted a Senior Deputy Registrar General, F. S. M. Ng’ang’a in presiding over the meeting.

  The officers were accompanied by their clerks Joseph Mwangi, John Githinji, Peter IreriMbogo and Joel WaweruKing’angi.

  Long-serving secretary to the company, Sammy GichukaKinyanjui, and equally long-serving treasurer James MuniuNjoroge were among those who were stripped of their ranks. Pioneer chairmen Wilson Bilgen and Samson MarakwenarapSerem, as well as their successor Patrick Waweru, have since died in that order. Organizing secretary Joseph Muturi and another influential director John Kahiga, are also deceased.

  With effect from June 3, the new board of directors, whose names have already been certified by F.S.M. Ng’ang’a (Senior Deputy registrar General) as the bona fide directors under the Company’s Act Chapter 486, are as follows: Richard K. Bunei  (chairman, representing Rumuruti area), Wilson WamitiNg’ethe (Vice chairman, representing Nairobi region), Justus NgureKamau (Secretary representing Nyeri region), Regina WangariKanyingi (Vice Secretary, gender) and James NgareKamotho (Treasurer, representing Nyahururu region).

  Other directors are Michael Ndung’uNdegwa (Nyeri), John KagiriKahoro (Nyandarua), Priscilla WangariThairu (Eldoret) and KinyuaNgunya (Kirinyaga).

Ng’ang’a asked the new team to uphold integrity and look into the interests of the shareholders regardless of ethnicity. Whereas majority of the shareholders are believed to be Kikuyus, a good number are Karenjins and it is this latter  lot who occupy the farm that is commonly known as Lorien. This group has also been resisting the settlement of others in the farm.

  There have been numerous, protracted court cases over the ownership of the farm. It is understood that among the tasks that the new board of directors are expected to tackle is the implementation of a court ruling on the subdivision of the farm, and to establish who the genuine shareholders are.

  The former late and former directors are said to have irregularly recruited shareholders nearly ten times above the genuine ones. The cash, it is alleged, lined up the wallets of some directors.

  “We are going to have big crisis as we sort out who is genuine and who is not, but with help from the government, we intend to be fair to everyone and be to transparent in the exercise,” said the new treasurer, James NgariKamotho, soon after being elected.

Bunei attributed the delay in settling all the genuine members to what he termed as “poor leadership and management”, saying that he had tried to restore sound management during his tenure in an acting capacity as chairman.

  “The company has never held AGM for the last twenty years, and those who have been purporting to be the directors have been frustrating the shareholders’ demand for meetings in order to conceal their financial and other mischief,” Bunei said.

Nganga emphasized that the government was committed in cleaning up all land buying companies and assist shareholders in line with Vision 2030, “through efficient leadership and proper mobilization of resources.

  Meanwhile, the company’s new secretary, Justus NgureKamau has written to Gichuka and Muniu, asking them to close the company’s office near the Clock tower in Nyahururu office and prepare to hand over all records in their possession.

  In the letter dated June 16 which was copied to the registrar of companies, the Nyahururu and Rumuruti DCs, the OCPDs Nyandarua, Rumuruti and Nyeri among others, the secretary accused the two former directors of blatantly disregarding the election.

  “The new Board has come to learn with dismay that you are still opening the company’s office on pretext that you are still the directors...You have no authority to transact any business on behalf of the company and as such your activities are not only unlawful but also illegal”, said Kamau.

  The new board said, separately, that they would open a new office. They cautioned wananchi not to pay any money to anybody purporting to sell them shares in the company as recruitment ended more than twenty years ago.