Contractual dispute: Zamara faces auction over debt

Pension fund Zamara Fanaka is facing the auctioneer's hammer after a firm obtained court orders to attach its property over a Sh125 million debt row.

Civil engineering firm Apex Systems Consulting Group Ltd was awarded Sh50.2 million by the high court on January 30, this year and subsequently obtained a warrant to attach the assets of the pension firm.

Apex Systems Consulting and AIA Architects had been contracted in 2015 to offer services for a multi-storey building in Nairobi’s Westlands by Zamara, formerly Alexander Forbes.

“Judgement be and is hereby entered in favour of the plaintiff as against the defendant for the sum of Sh50.26 million,” said the court orders signed by the High Court deputy registrar.

The orders stated that the costs and the fee awarded would be at court rates.?

Zamara had hired a consortium of firms dubbed Magharibi to put up a 46-storey building in 2015 but three years later; it informed the contractors that it had abandoned the project.

On March 1 2018, Zamara wrote to the consultants informing them of its decision to disengage its contractual relationship as a result of peer review assessment conducted by industry experts.

Last year, the consultants filed claims for Sh125 million after Zamara failed to pay for works already done, claiming in suit papers that it had completed 75 per cent of the works.

AIA demanded Sh76.6 million while Apex Systems Consulting sought Sh49.1 million for its services when they moved to court last year. On January 30, 2020, the Commercial Division of the High Court issued a decree against Zamara Fanaka board of trustees for Sh50 million.

The sum has since risen up to Sh52.4 million after Apex consultants claimed a further Sh1.5 million as interest and Sh634,000 as cost of the suit. The abandoned Westlands project was a twin-tower commercial and retail - one with 16 floors and another of 30 floors.