Tender rows and interests stall key Jubilee projects

Tendering squabbles for high-value projects made 2014 a difficult one for the Jubilee Government, stalling some flagship projects and occasionally jolting the coalition as political and vendor interests clashed.

The head of Kenya Institute of Supplies Management secretariat Hedwig Nyalwal told the Sunday Nation that the private sector has been a key player in the stalling of government projects because “they have become very competitive and pursue tenders by all means.”

“Only a small clique of people bid fearing the competitive nature and outside influence, thereby denying the public the best,” said Mr Nyalwal.

For starters, the laptops-for-primary-schools project, one of Jubilee Government’s key campaign pledges, appears to have taken a low priority and has simply vanished from active public discourse.

Had they stuck to the pledge, Class One pupils would have started using the laptops by the second term of 2014 which began in May.

But nearly two years since Jubilee began its reign, the laptops project appears to receive little attention especially after two failed take-offs.

According to Dr Samuel Nyandemo of the University of Nairobi, the government may be hiding behind the rising insecurity to conceal some of its failures in tendering and the other bigger problem of lack of funds for the project.

“The government doesn’t want to come out and tell the public that the laptops project was ill-conceived and there may actually be no funds for it in the first place,” the economics lecturer told the Sunday Nation.

Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi had on October 17, 2013, cancelled tendering for the laptops project on grounds that the bidders had quoted high prices beyond what the government had budgeted for, with the lowest technically evaluated bid being Sh32 billion.

Then in February, the Education ministry awarded the Sh24.6 billion tender to Indian firm Olive Telecommunications PVT Limited for supply of 1.2 million laptops to public primary schools. The award to Olive didn’t take off as it was cancelled by the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB) which questioned the firm’s financial capability to undertake a contract of such magnitude as well as the manner the tender was awarded.

VALID REASON

A subsequent court appeal by Olive was also thrown out in September paving the way for the government to start afresh the tendering process.

But to date, the government has not restarted the process, at least not to the knowledge of the public.
Such a key project, Dr Nyandemo said, cannot just be allowed to stall without a valid reason. “May be the government has realised that it was ill-conceived. But also, the starting point should have been training teachers and constructing computer laboratories in schools,” he said.

For Dr Nyandemo, the issue could also be because of a flawed tendering process and the influence of interested parties.

The interested parties, he said, were driving most government tenders to stall as bidders fight each other in court.

For instance, the Sh14.2 billion Galana-Kulalu Food Security Project in the coast region, which was to bring a million acres under irrigation, has been dogged by tendering queries that have delayed the take-off even after President Uhuru Kenyatta launched it in January.

MPs have been drawn into the row, with members of the agriculture committee, having travelled to Israel to carry out “due diligence”, asking the government to stop the contract that was awarded to Israel’s Green Arava because of lack of competitive bidding.

A subsequent High Court decision on December 16 also stopped the irrigation project temporarily and restrained the Tana and Athi Rivers Development Authority (Tarda) from implementing an agreement it entered with Braken Agricultural Ltd and their partners until a case filed by a rival company, Unifresh Exotics Ltd, is determined. 

WHITE ELEPHANTS

Similarly, the construction of the Greenfields project, an expansion of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, is yet to start despite the pomp and colour at the launch.

“The real issue may be lack of finances and lack of political will as well as competing political interests. Some of the projects have stalled and will become white elephants,” said Dr Nyandemo.

At the Geothermal Development Company (GDC), boardroom battles linked to the company’s handling of project loans and procurement tenders pitted the CEO, Dr Silas Simiyu, against former board chairman Simon Gicharu. Mr Gicharu insists some projects worth Sh1.9 billion are suspect and were undertaken without the board’s approval.

“At the GDC are issues of tendering that must be dealt with if the country is to benefit from the vast geothermal resources,” said Dr Nyandemo.

The tendering issues also arose when the government launched the standard gauge railway project. MPs at one point stopped the over Sh300 billion award of the contract to a Chinese firm, China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC). Two parliamentary committees of transport and investment both investigated the tender before clearing it.

The project has since taken off after the two committees cleared it.

According to Mr Nyalwal, the impression the squabbles have created is that the procurement profession is corrupt.

“However, many a times, the process is compromised by forces outside the profession,” he said.