In a rather dramatic start to the week, Kenyans on social media were on Sunday treated to the rich and luxurious life of Nairobi rich kid Joan Kubai who gave her Snapchat fans a virtual tour of her millionaire parents’ classy Runda mansion.
Videos from the tour soon went viral and within no time, online detectives had picked up their boots and took on the mission of unravelling every detail they could find on the low-lying Kubais, and in the process, her father and mother’s identities, as well as a string of previously well-contained dirty family linen from the past were unearthed.
By midday Monday, it had become apparent that Joan Kubai is the daughter of city tycoons Peter Macharia Kubai and Isabellah Wairimu Kubai, both of whom are majority shareholders and joint directors in a scandal-ridden construction company known as Belisa Limited.
On deeper digging, cnyakundi.com understood that the fraudulent firm is currently at the centre of two separate investigations by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) regarding among other things, their role in Murang’a Governor Mwangi wa Iria’s alleged violation of the public procurement law and multiple ghost projects under the Murang’a County government.
Typical of the new internet age, this information quickly spread like wildfire as moral cops and anti-graft crusaders on social platforms started questioning little-known Peter Macharia Kubai’s source of massive wealth, with some tagging various legal authorities in their search for answers.
They couldn’t quite fathom how as millions of Kenyans continue to struggle to afford basic standards of living, a family in Runda has dedicated a whole bedroom to folding clothes.
As a result, pressure mounted on Peter Macharia Kubai whose fear of detectives sniffing around more of his illicit business forced him into coercing his teenage daughter to immediately delete the footage she had published online.
A visibly shaken Joan Kubai, perhaps fully realizing the consequences of her naive blunder, would later in the afternoon record a series of Instagram videos, begging her followers and the online community at large to help her conduct the impossible task of getting rid of the videos from the internet.
This was, however, another sad case of too little too late as by the time she made the appeal, photos and videos of her family home had already circulated across WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube; which, according to a source who confidently spoke to us on Monday, sparked fresh attention from sleuths handling the various investigations into Mr. Peter Macharia Kubai’s shoddy deals.
By this moment, Twitter’s infamous online detectives continued to flex their efficiency at unmasking the Kubai family and fresh details on Belisa Limited’s minority shareholder and third Co-Director Jadiel Macharia Kubai would soon be leaked.
Documents from the Companies’ Registry show that Benisa Limited is owned by three people: Peter Macharia Kubai (who holds 50% of the shares), Isabellah Wairimu Kubai (who holds 25% of the shares) and Jadiel Macharia Kubai (Peter Macharia Kubai’s son) who holds the rest.
The company is believed to be part of a network of companies that Mr Peter Macharia Kubai and his family have been accused of using to mint funds through cunning tricks like securing double payment for the same work, or in most instances, no work done.
All the three directors of Benisa Limited are said to be business associates of Murang’a county Governor Mwangi Wa Iria.
A quick look into his social media profiles makes it clear to anyone that Jadiel Kubai, just like his sister Joan, equally loves to proudly showcase the massive wealth his father has accumulated.
In true swindler fashion, his biography, as well as the captions on his posts, are full of witty quotes which he fully utilizes sell a false image that attempts to portray him as a product of the rare societal virtues of hard work and integrity, whereas the reality is the exact opposite of what he pretends to be.
“Do what they wouldn’t so you can have what they can’t,” his bio welcomes you to the page, “Work In Silence, Let Results Be The Noise,” he captions another well-taken photo of him atop the hood of a shiny, metallic-maroon Land Cruiser Prado – the fuel guzzler synonymous with new-money crooks in Kenya.
The location of most of his uploads is “Runda” and his younger sister Joan Kubai religiously likes all the photos on his timeline.
It’s evident, from his posts, that Jadiel Kubai, just like any other rich Nairobi kid in his twenties, loves to drink, party and drive expensive, fast cars.
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Most times, as videos from his feed show, he does all three together, despite the glaring risks his misadventures pause to both him and other road users.
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After all, today’s diminishing Kenyan standards dictate, he is the son of a rich man, which places him higher above the law than the rest of the poverty-stricken millions.
Back to Benisa, on July 30, 2019 the firm obtained a default judgment in a suit it filed against CMC Di Ravenna to recover Sh31.5 million for rock blasting works it did in the Itare Dam Project, which has also collapsed and is at the centre of a Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) probe.
The now-bankrupt CMC Di Ravenna had hired Benisa on May 15, 2015 as a subcontractor to do a number of works on the dam project for about Sh360 million. The Italian firm, however, accused Benisa of deploying inadequate staff and resources on-site which led to the termination of the contract on June 22, 2018.
Apart from their involvement in Murang’a County Government’s unending graft, detectives also stumbled onto Benisa Limited while investigating the stalled Marsabit Stadium, where the firm was paid over Sh88 million but only 20 per cent of the work remains complete.
May the good Lord save Kenya!
