Regulator finalises rules on real estate listing

By Nicholas Waitathu

Nairobi,Kenya: The new rules governing the implementation of the Real Estate Investment Trust (Reits) are being fine-tuned before gazettement by the Minister of Finance Njeru Githae.

Technical and legal experts at Treasury and Attorney-General Chambers are fine tuning the rules that were supposed to have been approved before March 4 General Election.

Once gazzetted, they will pave way for listing of property developers at Nairobi Security Exchange (NSE). 

Capital Market Authority acting Chief Executive Officer Paul Muthaura yesterday called for calm in the industry, saying there is still time for the minister to approve the new rules before the end of this quarter.

If  Githae is to gazette the rules, he can only do so today as it is the only working day remaining in the last month of the current quarter. “Currently, technical experts at Treasury and Attorney-General (AG) Chambers are finalising the legal draft. This is whereby they simplify the words as well as organising the rules to be understandable to users,” Muthaura stated. “A few months ago, we agreed on the policy and intention of the rules together with the industry stakeholders and handled them over to the Treasury and AG for final legal language arrangement and later moved over to Finance minister for gazettement.”

Mauthaura expressed optimism that Githae will gazette the rules to enable  developers list on the NSE and thus start generating more funds to finance their projects.

Some quarters attribute the delay to gazettement of the rules to the current contestation of the presidential results announced on March 9 by the Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission in the Supreme Court.

NSE management is also optimistic that the minister of Finance will gazette the rules before the end of the first quarter. “We are awaiting gazettement of the Reits rules and registration by the Minister,” an official who sought anonymity said.