High Court stops Sh174 billion tender for coal project

The fight over a multi-billion-shilling tender to build a coal power plant yesterday took a new twist after the High Court barred a Gulf consortium and the Government from entering into any agreement.

The directive was issued following a petition filed before Justice Mumbi Ngugi by one of the bidders seeking to have the whole process stopped, citing irregularities.

In the case filed by Hebei Construction Investment Group (HCIG), the court heard that the Sh174 billion tender for construction of a coal plant, which is a part of the Lamu Port South Sudan and Ethiopia Transport corridor (Lapsset) project, was irregular and unfair to the bidders who had qualified in the preliminary stage of the process.

The court ordered that no agreement should be entered between the Gulf consortium and the Government until November 21, this year, when the court will make a ruling.

HCIG, through its lawyers Waweru Gatonye and Elisha Ongoya, told the court that Gulf Energy, which clinched the deal, had not qualified at the preliminary stages of the bidding and its inclusion in the final process was unfair to the other competitors.

While rising a preliminary objection, Gulf Energy through its lawyer Kimani Kiragu told the court that the petition was influenced by a commercial dispute and thus ought to have been in the commercial courts.

Kiragu further told the court that HCIG had filed a similar petition to a parliamentary committee and cited that the petition before Justice Ngugi was an abuse of the court process.

NO GROUNDS

Kiragu added that the prayers by the petitioner were not specific in nature and that the petition did not consist of any constitutional grounds that would warrant the court to issue the orders sought by HCIG.

“It has not been suggested that the petition committee has failed to listen to the petitioner or it lacks jurisdiction to give the orders sought before this court. The case does not have any constitutional grounds and thus the court should down its tools and rule that it has no jurisdiction to hear this matter,” Kiragu said.

The suit emanated from the declaration by the chairman of the tender evaluation committee Simon Ngure that a consortium led by Centum Investment, a public listed company that Kirubi chairs, and Gulf Energy had clinched the deal.

Ngure indicated that Centum and Gulf Energy consortium had performed better than the other two other bidders – Shanghai Electric Power Company and HCIG Energy.

Attorney General Githu Muigai, who is also a respondent in the case where the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum has been sued, told the court that it could not entertain a matter that was before another body.

Githu asked the court to refer the petitioners back to the petition committee as they had already placed similar claims to the ones that were before the court.

HCIG, in its petition, is asking the court to issue conservatory orders so that the deal will not be signed until the matter is heard and determined. It is also seeking to have access to all the information concerning the bidding process.

HCIG accused the tender committee of making deliberate efforts to award the contract to the Centum-led consortium.