Respect procurement law

What you need to know:

  • In fact, doing so is fraught with legal pitfalls. Even worse is a scenario where Executive orders are manipulated and used to serve partisan interests.

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s cancellation of contracts amounting to Sh288 billion signalled the government’s desire to streamline procurement of goods and services.

The contracts were deemed to be invalid because they were done outside the preferred system of online transaction that is intended to create transparency and outlaw underhand dealings that have so much characterised the traditional procurement systems.

Arguably, any move that protects the public from transactional losses is welcome. However, the matter cannot be looked at simplistically.

Contracts are arrived at through a process and have the force of law. Those who put in their bids incur expenses and spend time preparing them, which means they should not be cancelled at the whim of an individual.

In fact, doing so is fraught with legal pitfalls. Even worse is a scenario where Executive orders are manipulated and used to serve partisan interests.

Streamlining public procurement is an imperative and the use of online transactions is the way to go. However, care must be taken so that we do not have a situation where decisions on procurement are left to an individual because that can be abused.