Ministry to assess laptop tender firms

A government team will travel overseas to assess the technical capability of companies that bid to supply laptops for Standard One pupils this year.

The Education ministry said the process of conducting “due diligence” on the companies would culminate in actual site visits before the tender is awarded.

“We will visit the companies in the next few days as  part of the due diligence before we award the tender,” said Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang.

The PS said that almost all the companies that placed bids for the tender would be visited. These include HP Commercial, Huawei PTE, Samsung Electronics, Haier Technologies, ZTE Corporation and Samsung Electronics.

These companies had also participated in the initial tender that was cancelled in August last year. It was re-advertised on October 16.

The winner of the tender will service it at Sh24 billion, which Education minister Jacob Kaimenyi said was the best offer in the market.

This comes after the ministry made key changes to the rules governing the tender as it sought to bring down costs.

Only manufacturers of laptops participated in the fresh tender, locking out middlemen, who have been accused of inflating prices.

The State also left open a window for negotiating prices with short-listed suppliers.

At the same time, the supplier will also bear the cost of transporting the laptops to all schools in the country, further cutting down project costs.

However, the minister said that local IT experts and companies would also be involved.

According to the ministry, the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development had prepared content that would be installed in the laptops.

Some of the schools earmarked for the project have also had electricity installed with a further 4,500 schools set to be connected this year.