In a record 2 years 2 Libyan state firm have won no less than 5 state tenders, bought a petroleum firm divesting from the country and prime property located at the heart of Nairobi.

Most controversial and stinking though is the recent purchase of the country's most prime hotel previously owned by a controversial businessman and which was repossessed by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) only 3 months ago.

Hotel Grand Regency variously independently valued at an estimated Ksh 7 billion was sold by the CBK to Libya Arab Africa Investment (LAAIC) at Ksh 2.9 billion in a secret deal entered by the finance ministry and which caused resignation of finance minister Amos Kimunya .

The minister was censured by parliament for selling the property to the Libyans under private treaty contrary to the law of of disposal of public assets and for suspected corruption having sold off the hotel at far below it's market value.

The sale now under investigation by a committee set up by the government , the controversy has helped bring to light the numerous deals clinched by Libyans here under not very circumstances, but nearly all which reek of corruption at worst, and favouritism at best.

A year ago another Libyan state firm Tamoil , which specialises in oil was in absence of competitive tendering awarded a multimillion (valued at ksh 10 billion) deal to extend the Kenya- Uganda oil pipeline from Eldoret in western Kenya to Kampala .

The company making it's first entry into Kenya is expected to undertake the work which will cover a distance of over a thousand kilometers , extending the pipeline to Kampala easing oil transportation into landlocked Uganda .

Having come a time when Kenya was gripped by campaign mood, few took notice of the manner in which the deal was executed giving the new kids a smooth entry into Kenyan oil market and the mega deal making so common in government circles.
The lack of interest from the public in the deal could also have been because the contract was awarded jointly with the government of Uganda, which badly ants the pipeline extended to Kampala.

The good tidings for the north Africans did not end there , towards the end of last year the Kenya government after years of procrastinating decided to upgrade it's own Kenya Petroleum Refineries in Mombasa , jointly owned with oil firms Total and Caltex.

The aim was to make the facility produce unleaded petrol and low sulphur diesel in line with international practice .

The other partners ie Caltex and Total were not willing to pay up part of the money required to upgrade the facility and instead opted to sell their stake in the company, money which was to be used in converting and mordernising the refinery.

An Indian firm won the the bid to buy the stake owned by the 2 multinational, but government used it's preemptive powers preventing the firm from buying the 45% stake unless the Indians were ready to give an Libyan firm, OiLibya stake .

The Indians backed out and Oilibya were awarded the stake valued at Ksh 50 billion which will include upgrading the refinery.

Just at about the time the Libya Arab Africa Investment Company(LAAIC) was buying the controversial hotel , a secret deal was sealed to sell to the same firm ,a 4 acre plot adjacent to the at a cost of Ksh 1.2 billion. The plot previously used as a public carpark was property of the National Social security Fund (NNSF), a fund operated by the government.

As in other cases no tendering was done , Libyans just merged and closed the carpark to the public .

It is now emerging that the plot just like the hotel was actually sold sold to Libyans mid-last year after president Kibaki visited Tripoli and the money raised as difference (since all the properties are valued at a much higher price) used to finance his re-election campaigns.

As such it was just a matter of time before they were transferred to new owners and not much time has been wasted after formation of grand coalition government.

Outside the state tenders Oilibya has made it's mark in Kenya like no other company in Kenya's recent history. The firm toward the end of last year bought off al the 31 petrol stations belonging belonging to Exxon Mobil in the country.

Branding of the stations in the names of new owners is just coming to an end , and since fuel stations are so so easy to pick out in every highway anywhere it is here that ordinary Kenyans are really coming to reckon with the power of Libyan petro-dollars.

Questions are now asking what is in it for them in return for the state assets that Libyans are being offered, the northern Africa country so far not being associated with any aid donations to Kenya.

Warming of relations between Kibaki and the Gaddaffi regime would seem to have to picked up in 2004 when the president's nephew and confidant late Alex Mureithi visited Libya as special envoy to his uncle.

The country at the time was nearly being brought down by graft scandals and relations with the west were worsening by the day leading to a freeze in funding.
Mureithi visited a number of countries including China , reportedly with explicit authority to see closer ties with the 2 countries to save his uncle's led but new regime from isolation and a freeze in aid from the west.

Experts now say that the increased assertiveness of Tripoli is attributable to that as has been China's in the first 4 years of Kibaki rule.

But relations between the countries have not always been cordial moreso in the Moi days .

Kenya severed diplomatic relations with China in 1987, after Moi accused Libya of funding dissident activities sponsoring acts of sabotage and meddling in local politics. To be specific Moi asserted that Tripoli was through the Ugandan government , financing the activities of the then underground Mwakenya movement, a proscribed group made up of university dons and students that was giving the former ruler sleepless nights .

The fact that it was established by Kenyan intelligence that indeed Kenyan dissidents had received training Libya led to total cessation of relations and the same only resumed in the early 1990s.

That indeed Kenyan dissidents received guerilla training in Libya is collaborated by a majority of then radical leaders including Wafula Buke , an opposition political activist who led anti-U.S Nairobi university student demo when the the US bombed Tripoli.

While the Libyans may have clinched many other deals that are yet to come to light it is expected that after resignation of Kimunya (ex finance minister) will sort of put a break on the trend or most of the deals will hence forth be done overboard.