Company loses Sh250m JKIA parking tender

A firm that had been contracted to run an automated car park system at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) has lost the tender for lying about its directorship.

Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) had controversially renewed Kenya Airports Parking Services (KAPS) Sh250 million contract last September after it beat six other bidders.

The firm had been running the service at Kenya’s largest airport for 21 years.

But one of the bidders - Mason Services Ltd and joint venture partner Qntra Technology - contested KAA’s decision before the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB), citing fraud since KAPS’ shareholding is controlled by a foreign company known as KAPS Holdings Mauritius.

The other bidders were Automatic Park Services Ltd, Atlancis Technologies, Paytech Ltd, Com Twenty One joint venture with Servest Facilities Services Ltd and Endeavour Africa Kenya Ltd joint venture with East African Parking Ltd. Through Oyugi and Co Advocates, Mason had argued before the board that KAA acted contrary to the principles of fairness and transparency in awarding a tender “to a foreign company at the expense of local contractors".

PPARB, in its ruling delivered last week, said it had found that there were glaring discrepancies in KAPS’ tender documents with regard to its directorship, warranting the cancellation of the deal.

The board had ordered KAA to conduct thorough due diligence before confirming the tender award following Mason’s complaint, but the authority confirmed KAPS as the winning bidder.

At the heart of the dispute was KAPS’ ownership, with tender documents submitted by the firm showing conflicting information about its true owners.

As part of the tendering process, bidders were required to fill in a confidential business questionnaire to lift the veil on their shareholding.

From this questionnaire, KAA was supposed to verify if the information given was true as a mark for qualification.

Procurement law makes it an offence to give false information on the form, with the Public Procurement Oversight Authority (PPOA) having sweeping powers to bar firms from participating in any other tender touching on the Government.

In the confidential form, KAPS Ltd wrote that it was owned by Eric Mwandia, Samuel Kahiga, Epainitus Anzeze Galo and Godwing Wangong’u, with each director having an equal single share.

Three CR12 certificates - an official and legal confirmation or certificate by the Registrar of Companies indicating the details and the directors and shareholders of a company - dated July 26, 2018, January 9 and 21 this year, however, revealed different details on KAPS’ ownership.

According to the CR12 filed before the board, KAPS is owned by Bonnyventure Ngala Saronge, who owns KAPS Holdings (Mauritius) Ltd, which has 13,917 shares, Messrs Kahiga, Mwandia, Galo, who have zero shares, and Wangong’u with a single share.

It emerged that Kahiga, Mwandia, and Galo had been indicated in the questionnaire as directors who are shareholders, with each having one share. However, all three in the CR12 were simply identified as directors who are non-shareholders.

The board observed that Mr Saronge was included as a director on the January 21 CR12 while on the two other certificates, which had been attached by KAPS as part of its documents, he was not included.

“The board finds that the contents of the confidential business questionnaire in respect to KAPS Ltd’s directorship are false,” the board ruled.