Hitches dog mega State procurements

High Court Judges Francis Gikonyo (left) and George Odunga during the judgement of the Laptop tender project. The court has nullified the process and ordered that it starts afresh. [Photo: Fidelis Kabunyi/Standard]

Procurement hitches arising from legal and procedural issues have plagued most of the key Jubilee Government projects. These arise from failure by some of the procuring entities to stick to the rules, failure to do due diligence and the influence by power brokers, resulting in some projects taking longer to start.

The laptop tender was first cancelled by the Education ministry in October 2013, contending that all the participating companies had overpriced their costs. In the second instance, the exercise was cancelled by the Public Procurement Board on appeal in March 2014 from HPU of the Netherlands and Haier of China.