Firm’s Sh636m contract with ministry invalid

By Nancy Akinyi

A pharmaceutical company has been told a multi-million shilling contract it signed three years ago with the Ministry of Medical Services is invalid.

Attorney-General Amos Wako told the court the Sh636 million contract was obtained through fraud.

Mr Wako said this in reply to a suit filed by Dol International Ltd against the ministry’s PS James ole Kiyiapi, Kenya Medical Supplies Agency and the AG. He says a contract with a net value of more than Sh28 million was awarded fraudulently with the company’s officials colluding with ministry officers.

The AG, through acting Chief Litigation Counsel Wanjiku Mbiyu, says the firm is not an importer of pharmaceutical products, but works through misrepresentation, which was allegedly unearthed in 2006.

Wako and the defendants now want the suit dismissed and a judgement entered in their favour for a sum of Sh47,175,608.

The parties appeared yesterday before Commercial Court Judge Luka Kimaru, where they withdrew an application by Dol International, which sought a Sh636,870,610 judgement against the defendants for not filing a defence.

Filed defence

It emerged the defendants had filed a defence in the case, rendering the application irrelevant.

Justice Kimaru ordered the defendants to serve the defence on the plaintiff in seven days before setting the hearing date.

The disputed contract is for supply of X-Ray machines to public hospitals and other health facilities. The machines are mobile X-Ray, mobile X-tray envelopes, sutures, theatre boots, surgical gloves, and theatre gowns.

The defendants claim the contract was awarded in honest belief the firm had complied with all requirements under the Public Procurement Act.

In their reply, they maintain the contract is void and invalid because it was obtained through fraud and misrepresentation between the firm’s agents and some procurement officers at the ministry.

They want sums held in accounts of the firm’s major director, Mr Shadrack Ithinji, transferred to Kenya Commercial Bank or National bank in a joint account of the firm and the Treasury PS.

 

 

Read all about: Dol International Ltd

 

 

---