Capita Symonds on £3bn Kenya job

Capita Symonds has clinched the contract to be program delivery partner on a £3bn mixed-use development project in Kenya.

The Tatu City scheme, creating a new city in Greater Nairobi, is understood to be the largest real estate development in Africa and will house up to 62,000 people.

The majority shareholder in the scheme is Russian investment house Renaissance Partners, the investment arm of finance company Renaissance Group which operates across Africa, the Commonwealth of Independent States in the former Soviet regions and other emerging markets.

Capita Symonds will start work immediately, overseeing the program from pre-construction, project and design management, through to procurement and overall program management in the post-construction phase. Construction will begin in the first quarter of 2012. The value of fees to Capita has not been disclosed.

The Tatu City project has been mired in a series of legal disputes filed by its directors over its ownership. The latest round of cases opened earlier this month in Kenya’s High Court.

Last year Stephen Mwagiru, a founding director of Tatu City, filed a court petition to dissolve the firm saying other directors had excluded him from the management of its affairs.