The Kenyatta’s are arguably among the richest families in Kenya having investment interests in the hospitality sector, the banking industry, and farming among others. They are also some of the biggest landowners in the country with huge chunks of land in various parts of the country.
And on Sunday, the Panama Papers, the biggest leak of financial papers in history and containing 12 million files and obtained by the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), has linked Mr Kenyatta’s family to offshore bank accounts and companies valued at over Ksh3.3 billion.
The Pandora Papers, detail that the Kenyatta’s family led by Mama Ngina Kenyatta, the incumbent President, his sisters and brothers, have billions of shillings stashed in offshore accounts in Panama and the British Virgin Islands.
According to the papers and as detailed by ICIJ, the leak – which was shared with over 600 investigative journalists worldwide – a Panamanian law firm identified as Aleman, Cordero, Galindo & Lee (Alcogal) holds records showing that the Kenyatta family own at least seven companies and foundations in the tax havens.
“The records show that the family owned at least seven such entities, two registered anonymously in Panama and five in the British Virgin Islands,” details ICIJ.
The report further details that one of the entities that the Kenyatta’s own is a home in Central London, United Kingdom.
The British Virgin Islands is one of the most notorious tax havens in the world where billionaire world leaders and businessmen are known to stash billions of dollars.
The Pandora Papers, which are a collection of financial documents from 14 law firms and other service providers based in the United Arab Emirates, the Seychelles, Panama and Singapore, went ahead to reveal that Mr Kenyatta and his mother, Mama Ngina Kenyatta, are listed as the main beneficiaries of Varies Foundation, a trust-like foundation designed to manage and shelter wealth for beneficiaries.
The Pandora Papers named the Kenyatta’s among 35 other world leaders including President Ali Bongo of Gabon and the King of Jordan as among the most influential and significant persons with unimaginable magnitude of wealth stashes offshore.
