If Laico, the Libyan Africa Investment Company, thought that by changing the name of the recently acquired hotel to “Laico Regency” it would remove the spotlight from the disputed transaction, they have to go back to the drawing board.
When the name change was announced recently, it rather had to effect to crank up expectations on the parliamentary and judicial inquiries presently underway; whose findings may yet overturn the sales agreement.
Said one hotelier to eTN: “They are probably trying to create facts on the ground with the name change, but then no one will call it that.
“It was always the ‘Regency’ and few of us bothered about the ‘Grand’ in the name, almost like with the Lake Victoria Hotel, where they also changed the name and no one seems bothered now to call it Libyan Hotel or Laico Lake Victoria.
“In any case, if the Cockar Commission finds that Kenya has been cheated over the value of the hotel, they will decide which way to go, also the parliamentary committee, and if they say reverse, then government has to follow and the name change will have been in vain anyway.”
Another source from Nairobi accused the Libyans openly of contempt of court by belittling Justice Cockar’s Commission of Enquiry and also contempt of parliament, as the investigations into the controversial sale were still ongoing.
A verdict by in favor of the sale by no means certain.
