MKU chair Gicharu finds it rough as Ruto isolates Uhuru’s billionaires

In a country where business and politics are closely intertwined, billionaires who are close to the presidency can sometimes influence government policy to favour their businesses.

That Radio 47, the newest addition to businessman Simon Gicharu’s empire, was launched without any fanfare this week shows how much things have gone full circle for the multi-billionaire whose success so far has been partly tied up to his closeness to power.

After enjoying over two decades of unfettered access to the presidency during Uhuru Kenyatta and Mwai Kibaki’s regimes – Gicharu who is the founder and chairman of Mt Kenya University – has suddenly found himself on the other side of the chess board.

Had Radio 47 for example been launched during President Kenyatta’s tenure, high-profile guests including cabinet secretaries would most likely have graced the event. They were nowhere to be seen on Monday. In fact, the station’s owner was in Dubai at that time.

The businessman is among Mt Kenya billionaires who courtesy of their closeness to Kenyatta had placed their bets on Azimio La Umoja leader Raila Odinga in the last elections only for him to lose to William Ruto. The Kenya Kwanza administration – whose members suffered immensely at the hands of the former regime – has decided it’s payback time.

A hard-working and suave entrepreneur, Gicharu became the youngest Kenyan to establish a private university at the age of 46 in 2009 when he started Mt Kenya University. In just 15 years, MKU has grown to become the largest private university in East Africa with a student population of over 50,000 spread across six countries.

“You must have passion, focus and some knowledge about what you are doing. This is a valuable lesson I have learned,” said the billionaire three years ago about his path to success.

“Looking back, the biggest achievement I have made is being able to change the lives of young people. It is not about money. When you are on top of a mountain, you have the whole world below you,” he said.

While the growth of MKU and other ventures owned by Gicharu have been because of his business acumen, the fact that he was very close to power also played a big part.  In a country where business and politics are closely intertwined, billionaires who are close to the presidency can sometimes influence government policy to favour their businesses.

MKU for example controversially sold its Lodwar campus to the government in 2017 in a deal that is to date shrouded in secrecy. The university was commissioned in 2015 in a high-profile event whose guest list included retired president Kenyatta’s sister Christina Pratt.

During the event, it was revealed that MKU had invested at least Sh200 million to put up the campus which was standing on a hundred acres of land donated by the Turkana County government. Speakers at the event praised MKU for igniting a spark of change in the marginalized community.

“Mount Kenyatta University has provided the needed tertiary education in the semi-arid area and much-needed water through boreholes and other community-based projects to better the lives of the county residents,” said Christina Pratt who was the chief guest.

Yet within a year after the high-profile launch, MKU silently shut down the Turkana campus after it realized it was a financial misadventure. Stuck with assets that had been rendered useless, a deal was struck to sell the campus to the government. Documents accessed by sauce.co.ke show that the campus was sold for Sh1.15 billion to the Ministry of Education on November 30, 2016.

A valuation report seen by sauce.co.ke that was used for the controversial sale shows that the university was standing on a piece of land worth Sh110 million. The same report placed the buildings at Sh670 million, and other assets at Sh70 million bringing the total value to Sh850 million.

This means that the Ministry of Education most likely bought assets whose value had been inflated including a piece of land that had been donated to MKU by the Turkana county government.

“However, the listing, description and valuation of each individual asset in each asset category were not included in the valuation report. Consequently, the accuracy and completeness of property plant and equipment amounting to Sh1,031,754 could not be confirmed,” said the auditor general in his report that was never discussed in parliament at the time.

Apart from the Lodwar campus deal, Gicharu as the chairperson of the National Private Universities Owners Association of Kenya led in lobbying the government to start admitting state-sponsored students in privately owned universities.

The policy – which was started in 2015 – has in recent days come under sharp criticism from parliament which is accusing the government of funding private universities at the expense of public institutions of higher learning.

Revelations made before the Public Investment Committee on Education and Governance last month showed that since 2016 the State Department of Higher Education and Research has disbursed Sh12 billion to private universities.

In the 2021/2022 financial year, private universities were allocated Sh3.3 billion, Sh2.7 billion in 2020/2021 and Sh1.9 billion in 2019/2020.

Leading the pack for receiving the highest number of students last year was MKU with 5,489. It was followed by the Catholic University of East Africa (2,691), KCA University (2,724), Kabarak University (2,157) and Zetech University (1,673).

In addition to getting the highest number of public sponsored students, MKU was also among the four universities that were in 2021 selected to offer a controversial teacher retraining course. The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) at that time argued that the mandatory professional courses that would cost each teacher Sh6,000 was going to inform their promotion and professional growth.

The universities selected to offer the program were MKU, Kenyatta and Riara universities as well as the Kenya Education Management Institute. TSC boss Nancy Macharia two weeks ago told parliament that the program will be suspended.

“In view of the feedback from teachers and other stakeholders, the commission is in consultation with the Ministry of Education to use the existing teacher training colleges as centres for capacity building and professional development programmes for teachers,” she said.

The story was first published by sauce.co.ke

https://sauce.co.ke/2023/03/mku-chair-gicharu-finds-it-rough-as-kenya-kwanza-isolates-uhurus-billionaires/

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