Energy Regulatory Commission to re-advertise a Sh270 million tender

NAIROBI, KENYA: A court has allowed the Energy Regulatory Commission to re-advertise a Sh270 million tender for checking fuel adulteration and substandard gas.

The Court of Appeal set aside a High Court order that had directed the commission to reinstate a tender awarded to SGS Kenya Limited.

Judges Roselyne Nambuye, William Ouko and Patrick Kiage said there was nothing wrong with the Public Procurement Administration Review Board upholding the ERC decision to terminate the tender.

“To command the award denied the appellant’s accounting officer a right and discretion flowing from statute and the order was therefore a classic case of the court, in the guise of preventing abuse of power, itself engaging in a conspicuous abuse of its powers by usurping those that belong to other entities,” read the judgement.

ERC floated the tender in May 2017 for marking and monitoring of petroleum products to curb adulteration of fuel. It attracted three bids.

The bids from Silpa SA, Intertek Testing Services and SGS Kenya were evaluated by a committee that was appointed by the commission. On June 20, 2017 it recommended that the tender be awarded to SGS at an annual cost of Sh270 million.

In its recommendations, however, the committee observed that the increasing need of detection of adulteration by use of Jet A1 fuel ought to have been captured in the terms of reference for the tender.

This led to the termination of the procurement process for the changes to be incorporated.