January 10, 2025

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Relief to Optiven Group customers as company refunds Sh 200m as it pursues rogue partner

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Optiven Limited, a land selling and real estate company has refunded Sh200 millions to compensate all customers who bought greenhouses at the Kilimo Tujijenge project, after the partner who had been paid to implement the project reneged on executing their part of the deal.

The Kilimo Tujijenge Project, which was to begin in 2017 in Kajiado County, was a partnership between Optiven and SME Resource Centre and was aimed at enabling customers who were to come on board to venture into agribusiness through a greenhouse farming model.

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Optiven was to provide the land and value additions such as drilling of boreholes and piping water into every plot.

SME Resource Centre on the other hand was to install and manage the greenhouses on behalf of customers in addition to marketing the produce.

Customers were to get directly paid by SME Resource Centre after all the harvested produce had been sold and expenses deducted. SME Resource Centre however reneged on its contractual obligations, which saw customers lose on their investments.

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‘Optiven believes in the empowerment of its customers and opted this route as a positive outcome from the ongoing criminal case is hopefully awaited,’’ Optiven Limited said

Optiven Limited as well as other independent investors who had put money in the project have already sued SME Resource Centre Ltd at Kiambu Law Courts and Kajiado Law Courts.

SME Resource Centre Ltd is owned by June Gathoni who is fighting similar cases in court for defrauding Urithi Housing Cooperative Society, Diamond Properties among others in a similar project.

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‘’Soon after the year 2017, it became clear to Optiven that SME Resource Centre Ltd and its CEO Josephine Gathoni aka June Gathoni were bent on not delivering what they had promised. Optiven took a quick step to report this entity and its director to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), upon which a criminal case has been ongoing for the last 4 years at the Kiambu Law Courts. Optiven and several Kilimo customers are state witnesses against SME Resource Centre and Josephine Gathoni in this ongoing case,’’ Optiven Limited said in a statement

OPTIVEN said the refund aspect was reached out through a Cushoning Risk Sharing Initiative to all its affected customers.

‘Optiven is a caring partner; so pending the determination of this ongoing case, Optiven began refunding all affected customers through a cushioning Risk Sharing Initiative. Under this Initiative, Optiven has refunded most of the affected customers’ funds that were directly paid to SME Resource Centre for greenhouses,’’ the company noted

Most of the customers, Optiven Limited said, have either been refunded cash or swapped the amount that they had lost through SME Resource Centre with new plots of land across the various projects owned by Optiven Limited or offset any outstanding balances on plots they are already servicing.