The Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) run Boma Hotel is in the red kenyanbusinessfeed.com has learnt.
The Hotel which is located in South C, Nairobi Estate has always had a bad tag. In the years after Kenyans for Kenyan drought victims’ funds drive in 2011, many accused the KRCS of diverting funds from the noble initiative to fund the construction of the Hotel.
“There was no due diligence in the construction of this hotel, worse still, the money was not meant for such activities. The money was meant for Kenyans”, said one official who did not wish to be named.
In recent years, other questions have been raised on what exactly KRCS does with the money t raises out of Kenyans goodwill. There is the issue of a stalled dam construction in Baringo. The Chesirimion dam and irrigation project stalled after gobbling Ksh117 million, that’s a lot of money. The dam was initially planned for sh1 billion.
Boma Hotel might be a brainchild of such schemes. Now it has failed to attract clients and is in the red.
Meanwhile, Abbas Gullet, the KRCS Secretary-General who is set to retire at the end of this year is in Geneva Switzerland on holiday.
Mr. Gullet in the near past, had been under sharp focus, in early 2019, Kenyans refused to do a Kenyans for Kenyans kind of funds drive because of integrity issues. Most stated that the money that was raised in 2011 went to a few individual’s pockets.
Kenyans used the hash tag ‘TumechokaRedCross’ on twitter, to fault the initiative.
Boma Hotel was a badly thought-out venture. However, there’s more.
Apart from Boma Hotel and Chesirimion dam projects. There’s the Tv station idea that KRCS run with that is threatening to bankrupt the whole organization.
Switch TV, as it is called, has had quite an eventful year.
Launched in 2018, the TV station started showing signs of collapse even before a year ended. The management, which was selected through nepotism and other unlawful acts are visionless and poor strategists, leading to loss of business and money due to a high wage bill.
also encountered upheavals and has eaten into the much-needed revenues of the society that is needed for emergency programs.
According to analysts the return in investment wasn’t all that good even after a year of good marketing.
The struggling Boma Hotel is not in a class of its own. The Hotel industry in Kenya has struggled for the past one year and that a long time in business.
According to the data from the Kenya Association of Hotel Keepers and Caterers, last year at this time, there was only 60 per cent bed occupancy in especially the most favoured tourist destination. This is very low as compared to when tourism was booming and hotel had 100 per cent bed occupancy.
‘Boma Hotel was a bad idea for such an institution that depends on goodwill to make its money’, stated a staff who did not wish to be named.
As KRCS struggles to keep Boma Hotel afloat, it remains to be seen how the future of the charity organization will pan out.
Kenyan Business Feed is the top Kenyan Business Blog. We share news from Kenya and across the region. To contact us with any alert, please email us to [email protected]