On Tuesday, March 5, 2019 Rev Peter Kaniah, the secretary-general of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA), dispatched letters to the 56 presbyteries across the country calling on them to come to the aid of one of their real estate projects — the Sh1.7 billion Milele Beach Hotel in Mombasa.
“Greetings in Jesus (sic) name,” he wrote to the presbyteries, which represent the estimated four million church faithful. “We wish to take this early opportunity to thank you all for your wise decision to rescue our Milele Beach Hotel from being auctioned.”
PCEA took over the hotel in 2007, continuing a trend nowadays where churches are sinking billions of their worshippers’ offerings into income-generating activities.
Rev Kaniah’s letter to the presbyteries a fortnight ago was to urge them to raise Sh13 million each month in order to offset a loan of Sh761 million, which the hotel owes the National Bank of Kenya.
“All the parishes shall share Sh13 million per month for a period of two years during which the Head Office shall complete construction of the houses and sell them to clear the Sh761 million (debt),” he wrote.
The money raised will not go directly to the loan repayment, but will be used to finish construction of an apartment of 64 units, which stands next to the hotel but which has stalled due to lack of funds.
With the money, the church hopes to complete the apartments and sell them within two years in order to raise money to pay back the NBK loan.
“We expect to raise Sh1.2 billion should we sell the apartments,” Rev Kaniah said.
The hotel is valued at Sh1.7 billion, he said in the letter.
However, the present-day financial demands passed on by the leadership of the church upon its own members to sustain the commercial projects whose viability has been questioned, has raised eyebrows among some of its followers.
“People who go to PCEA also want churches that are after people’s (sic) money shut down?” tweeted a church follower calling herself Galina Reznikov on Twitter during the debate on whether the state should start regulating churches.