Kenya Insights

Tag: Tabitha Karanja

  • Keroche Heiress Anerlisa Muigai’s Boyfriend Joe Kariuki’s Fake Lifestyle Exposed

    Keroche Heiress Anerlisa Muigai’s Boyfriend Joe Kariuki’s Fake Lifestyle Exposed

    By Vincent Achuka

    The businessman at the centre of the fake fertiliser scandal, Josiah Kariuki Kimani popularly known as Joe Kariuki, spent at least two years in a Tanzanian jail for fraud and at one time pushed a narrative in the media that he owned an airline that did not exist.

    Kariuki has been in the limelight for the last month after his company, Silica Booster Limited, popularly known as SBL Innovate Limited, was exposed by African Uncensored for selling fake fertilizer to farmers across the country.

    Last month, Kariuki appeared at a church service in Nakuru with area senator Tabitha Karanja where they claimed that the businessman is being fought by unnamed people for political reasons.

    “He was implicated as the one bringing fake fertilizer. As a senator whose business has been fought on the basis of politics previously, I saw from a distance that this is a campaign being done by John Alan Namu who has been paid,” said Senator Tabitha at Shabaab Catholic Church.

    For now, it is unclear whether Kariuki’s attempt to use the tried and tested technique of blaming politics by businessmen whenever caught in a scandal will save him.

    What many people do not know, however, is that this is not the first time that Kariuki is finding himself in controversy, even as he puts up a spirited fight to defend himself.

    The businessman who rose within the entertainment circles in Nairobi was first thrust into the limelight as a boisterous music promoter in 2012. He loved selling a larger-than-life persona in the blogs and entertainment sections of the newspapers.

    If faking it until making it refers to a person; Joe Kariuki has been there and done that for years until he became mentioned in what could easily be the Kenya Kwanza government’s first major scandal.

    Before he started selling fake fertilizer in the government scheme under controversial circumstances, Kariuki faked his image as a ‘billionaire music mogul’ between 2012 and 2015.

    Operating from Vision Plaza along Mombasa Road, Kariuki initially sold himself as the owner of Candy n Candy Records, a music label and artist management company.

    At that time, he had just moved back to Kenya from the United Kingdom under controversial circumstances when he was 34. No one knows why he decided to come back to Kenya or what he was doing in the UK.

    However, the official narrative, pushed by Kariuki when he joined the local music business was that he has worked with big record labels like Virgin Records and he wanted to transfer the skills he had learned abroad to assist Kenyan artists.

    Candy n Candy began in Mombasa in 2013 before moving to Nairobi a year later. During its entire existence, the record label never produced any musical hits but pure air.

    Kariuki was however a master salesman who knew how to entice journalists to write fictitious tales showering him with praises. These stories were interestingly, rarely challenged by editors or fact-checked for that matter.

    Like in one article run by popular entertainment website Ghafla in 2016, Kariuki had apparently been named as one of Africa’s Top 40 Inspirational Visionaries by an un-named Rwandan think tank.

    The article did not name who did the poll but said, “Joe Kariuki came second,right behind Tanzania’s maverick President John Pombe Magufuli as one of Africa’s top 40 most inspirational visionaries.”

    “I didn’t see that coming,” Joe was quoted in the article which was obviously fake news but being pushed as a real story.

    “I mean, I’ve had great moments in my life, found many blessings, and achieved fairly good recognition from far and wide but to be mentioned as the second most influential visionary in Africa? 

    “Alongside the likes of President Magufuli, Strive Masiyiwa, and Aliko Dangote? Wow! No one could predict that. I’m still trying to digest the news,” said Kariuki.

    In another such article published by the Star, Kariuki claimed that his record label Candy n Candy had signed among others American rapper Jay Z.

    If you think these claims are outrageous, Kariuki at one time went as far as claiming that his record label had entered into a contract with Mombasa’s Sarova White Sands Hotel to manage a nonexistent nightclub located within the five-star establishment.

    According to the claims which were published by the Standard in 2014, Candy n Candy had been given exclusive rights to manage Rhythm Night Club which had been renamed Candy Rhythm Night Club.

    Apparently, according to the article, the information about Candy n Candy entering into a ‘deal’ with Sarova had been leaked to the press and he was therefore responding to the claims.

    Almost all the articles about him were written in this same manner. And there are dozens of them. Just Google ‘Music Mogul Joe Kariuki Candy n Candy’ and you will see for yourself how one man managed to lie to the whole country through high-grade deceptive marketing.

    “I have nothing to worry about, this is a big recording company with all the machinery needed in terms of the music industry is concerned. 

    “The club sound is proof with a classic VIP room and can host up to 700 fans,” Kariuki told the Standard in the article about his company entering into a deal with the Sarova White Sands Hotel for instance.

    I met Kariuki around 2015 when his snake oil salesmanship was at its peak. 

    At that time he had just signed former Tanzanian Bongo star Mr Nice to his record label. 

    The artist released one song ‘Mama’ in an effort to resuscitate his career but it flopped.

    A colleague called me and said there was a businessman who had started an airline and whether I would be interested in covering him. I agreed.

    As I was waiting for the company car to take me to meet Kariuki, I did a quick background check on him on the internet like any journalist would. 

    Everything I saw about him was marvelous. Apart from his successful record label, the businessman had just launched Candy Empire TV and Candy Empire Radio.

    Once I sat down with him, he gave me a long rags-to-riches story of how he was born in Naivasha and dropped down in form two at Magomano Secondary School in Kinangop before ending up in the UK using a Sh50,000 loan that his father had given him.

    He also gave me an explanation of his experience in the music business and how it had given him millions of shillings and that he was investing in his next venture, an airline called Candy Air.

    He then turned around the screen of his computer and showed me Candy Air’s website which had several airplanes on it, booking procedures, and any other thing an airline should have on the internet.

    When I asked him where the planes were so that I come with a photojournalist to photograph them for the newspaper, he explained that all his planes were all out on assignment across the African continent.

     He promised to have his people call me when they were positioned at Wilson Airport later that week so that we could photograph them.

    We ended that conversation there. A few hours after I got back to the office, Kariuki’s guys started calling me asking about the whereabouts of the article and when it would be published. 

    I explained about our agreement on the photographs but they insisted that I ran the article first using just his photograph.

    I went back to the airline’s website to have a look at the planes again. When I ran their tail numbers to establish ownership, I realised it was all fake. The planes were all registered to other airlines. So I shelved the article to avoid embarrassing myself and my young career.

    Interestingly, days later articles about Kariuki launching an airline started appearing in other news websites.

    Three months after the airline debacle, Kariuki announced that he was running for the Langata Parliamentary seat on a TNA ticket. He had also invested in a multimillion mining venture in Taita Taveta was soon going to unveil TwinTalk; a “Facebook-like” social media platform.

    “I have registered a company under the trademark Hard Assets which now has a licence to mine along the coastal belt. We will be shipping the minerals to Europe where they will be refined and sold to the American gemstone market,” he told the Star on April 15, 2015.

    He then suddenly disappeared from the limelight until two years later on August 17, 2017, when it was announced that Kariuki had been arrested in Tanzania for defrauding Yusuf Mohamed, a Tanzanian businessman Sh13 million.

    He was sentenced to seven years in an Arusha prison but was released in 2019 after winning an appeal. Once back in Kenya, Kariuki ventured into the online forex trading business through a company called 51 Capital Business.

    The company was launched in typical Kariuki style together with another Tanzanian ex-convict Don Bosco Gichana on December 5, 2019.

    “Dressed in a Ksh87,000 Yves Saint Laurent black suit, white shirt, and a red tie, Mr Bosco spoke passionately about the future of forex trading, the benefits of cryptocurrency, the emergence of new economic trends, and the lucrative online forex trading,” reported Business Today about the launch.

    A few weeks after the launch, the Star reported that Joe Kariuki had been named the Best African Forex Trader 2019 by IC Markets, a leading Forex Contract For Difference provider based in Sydney, Australia.

  • Tabitha Karanja Spends More Time Drinking Alcohol Than Serving Her Mandate, Alai Claims

    Tabitha Karanja Spends More Time Drinking Alcohol Than Serving Her Mandate, Alai Claims

    Kileleshwa MCA Robert Alai has sensationally claimed the Senator of Nakuru Tabitha Karanja spends most of her time partaking in binge drinking forgetting to serve her oversight duties in the senate. Alai who was reacting to the impeachment threats initiated by the senator on governor Susan Kihika, claimed that Tabitha is oblivious of what’s going on in the county as she’s allegedly drowned in the bottle.

    “The problem with Tabitha Karanja is that she spends more time drinking alcohol than even trying to understand what’s happening in Nakuru County.” He said.

    “Please address Governor Kihika while sober.” He want further to fire salvo.

    Kileleshwa MCA Robert Ala (left). Anerlisa Muigai and her mother Nakuru Senator Tabitha Karanja.

    In a retaliation, Anerlisa Muigai issued a stern warning to Robert Alai while responding to his remarks about her mother.

    The Keroche heiress warned the Kileleshwa MCA to stop telling lies about her mother.

    “ROBERT and I repeat ROBERT!!!!! STOP TELLING LIES ABOUT MY MUM,” Anerlisa Muigai wrote.

    IG Post.

    rning and called her a spoiled brat, insisting that her mother is a public figure and as such is subject to criticism.

    “Parents, tell your spoiled little brats that the only place you can demand to be left alone and not criticised is when not in a public office as elected or appointed official. You can’t be so drunk and clueless while serving as a public officer. We will call you out whether your children likes it or not,” Robert Alai wrote on X.

    The move by the Keroche Breweries boss has attracted harsh criticism even from members of her own political party, UDA. Former nominated senator Millicent Omanga Is one of those who’ve reacted to the impeachment threats calling it political witch-hunt and a shame to womanhood.

    “Sen Tabitha’s call for the impeachment of governor Kihika is unfortunate and smacks of hypocrisy. It can’t be gainsaid that the people of Nakuru are in need of services. Gov should be supported to deliver on her mandate without unnecessary diversions and political witch-hunt. For God’s sake, women should stop being their own enemies!”

    At the center of the row is the Nakuru Senator calling on Members of Nakuru County Assembly to initiate an impeachment motion against Governor Susan Kihika for allegedly violating the Constitution.

    Citing the events at the War Memorial Hospital, where county enforcement officers raided the facility, and chased away doctors, nurses and staff, Karanja challenged the MCAs to take up their oversight role and initiate the removal of the governor from office.

    She said the raid at the hospital and the cruel treatment of patients was ground to impeach the governor.

    The calls for impeachment came just hours after a patient who was admitted to the hospital’s High Dependence Unit (HDU) died a day after the forceful takeover.

    Ms Karanja insisted that she was doing her oversight duty and the hospital saga had eroded investors’ confidence.

    She announced that she has no interest in the governors position and was keen to do her over sight role safeguard the rights of voters.

    “We are calling on the EACC, DCI and the relevant government agencies to investigate how public funds are being used as we fear there is massive embezzlement,” she said.

    The senator claimed that since the governor took office, she has been undermining other elected leaders and calling them names.

  • Keroche And Tabitha Karanja’s Hands Are Not As Clean After All

    Keroche And Tabitha Karanja’s Hands Are Not As Clean After All

    Tabitha Karanja in an interview with CNN told of how she ventured where few before her had dared, taking on a decades-long business monopoly and overcoming gender stereotypes to become a major player in Kenya’s lucrative drinks industry. Starting two decades ago, Karanja who was involved in the hardware shop business that she and her husband had operated for nearly 10 years in Naivasha, noticed a gap in Kenya’s alcoholic beverages market. Here, they thrived.

    The multi-billion-shilling Keroche Breweries has however not had the best history, just recently it been all over the news over all the wrong reasons seeing the two owners spend nights in cells in a battle with the Kenyan tax man. In what Karanja calls a political war on the company, an audit by the Kenya Revenue Authority established that the company had evaded the payment of tax totaling Ksh14,451,836,375.

    This is not the first instance the company is on the spot. Since inception, the company has been marred with irregularities, with dozens of cases for breaching of employees contracts and wrongful terminations, failure to pay benefits and making up null and void reasons for termination without pay i.e on account of redundancy. The liquor company has been trying to paint themselves as saints but the breaches with employees prove different.

    In a court case CAUSE NO.374 OF 2017 one Paul Wachiuri Ndonga accused  Keroche Breweries Limited of unfair termination of employment without notice or hearing with the given reasons lacking validity and denying the employee payment of the terminal dues owing. This is just one case of the many where Keroche had to pay Ksh1.4 million in compensation for the same. A similar case CAUSE NO. 786 OF 2013  the brewer was ordered to pay one George Njogu Ndungu a total of Ksh920,833 after the court found that it had terminated the Claimant unfairly camouflaging it as a redundancy and without following due process. A check on Kenya Law paints a vivid picture of a troubled Keroche employer always in and out courts with problems with employees and KRA.

    When the company was just a few years old, a motion brought in parliament by an MP claimed Keroche “was killing three people” in his constituency every day. After being summoned to the offices, the matter was abandoned.

    The whole family has atleast once made the news over wrong reasons. For instance the “Beer Empress” Anerlisa Muigai, who is the Karanjas daughter was published in the local dailies after she was sued for Sh19.9 million. According to suit papers Anerlisa borrowed three loans totalling to Sh13 million from a Dennis Mwangeka and gave two vehicles, a Range Rover Evoque and an Audi Q7 as security. then went on to default.  After vehicle confiscation, Dennis received a phone all from the Flying squad summoning him to the police station as the vehicle being held “in lieu of the loans was stolen from the defendant’s mother, Tabitha Karanja of Keroche Industries.”

    Battle With The Taxman

    The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has over the years been embroiled in a tug of war with the Naivasha-based brewer over tax. In a battle with KRA, the taxman had demanded Ksh1.1bn in taxes backdated nine years as as underpaid taxes. Keroche moved to court and Justice Joseph Nyamu eventually concluded KRA was abusing its powers. The revenue authority proceeded to appeal the decision by the High Court where the court had prohibited the taxman from demanding the taxes. The decade-old case pitting the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and the brewer over the Ksh1.1 billion was ruled in favor of Keroche,

    In another case, KRA slapped the company with a Ksh1.3 billion tax claiming Keroche ought to have been paying excise duty of Sh101.2 per litre on its Viena Ice Ready-to-Drink Vodka and sent the beer maker a backdated demand letter inclusive of penalties. Keroche disputed this calculation saying the particular drink, which it produces by diluting another brand Crescent Vodka, should be taxed at the rate of Sh26.4 per litre and sought the intervention of Industrialization Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohammed in what the management termed as a fight instigated by its competitors. KRA Commissioner General John Njiraini said this matter can be “resolved.”

    Keroche has been listed on multiple occasions as not tax-compliant and at on point the taxation dispute had supposedly resulted in accrual of huge tax arrears and that the revenue agency had no option than close the operations. Keroche, KRA claimed, had been involved in under-declaration of the applicable excise duty on its potable spirit brands produced at its plant. The plant closure followed instructions issued by Pancrasius Nyaga the commissioner for domestic taxes, who wrote about the taxation dispute. “You are forthwith required to cease manufacture of excisable goods, pay excise for all goods manufactured by you, return all unused excise stamps issued to you by KRA,” Mr Nyaga had written two weeks prior to the licenses withdrawal.

    2019 saw the company charged with upto 10 counts related to tax evasion committed between January 2015 and June 2019 amounting to over Ksh14.4 billion in tax. “An audit by the authority established that Keroche Breweries Ltd had evaded the payment of tax totalling to Sh14,451,836,375. Having independently reviewed the file and applying the provisions of the National Prosecution Policy, I am satisfied that there is sufficient evidence and that it is in the public interest to charge the suspects with 10 counts of tax fraud, contrary to section 97 (a) of the Tax Procedures Act, 2015,” Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji said.