Mombasa County on spot over sh17 billion waste tender without Assembly's approval

Julius Ogogoh, CLT Executive Director addressing the media in Mombasa about the Court of Appeal verdict that struck out Mombasa Cement's application to challenge a ruling on a sh350m land case at the Supreme Court. [File, Standard] A human rights organisation is demanding documentation revealing how Mombasa County entered into a Sh17 billion waste-to-energy tender project without the assembly's approval. The Centre for Litigation Trust (CLT) said that the entire tendering process that was awarded to Jospong Group, a Ghanaian conglomerate, was shrouded in secrecy without public participation. CLT Director Julius Ogogoh wrote to the county demanding details and the number of entities that applied for the tender and shortlisted tenderers within seven days, failure to which they will move to court. Ogogoh said that they have established that the county have since, in mysterious circumstances and without public participation, awarded a tender for the design, building, financing, maintaining, operating and transferring of a waste-to-energy processing plant in Mwakirunge, Mombasa, for the financial years 2024/2025-2026. "The foregoing notwithstanding, public participation as mandated by the law has never been undertaken, nor has the said tender ever been tabled before the County Assembly of Mombasa for deliberations as required by law," said Ogogoh. The activists also want the county to reveal the dates when the alleged public participation was conducted. "We seek to know whether the tender is a public-private partnership or a normal tender and if the PPP was tabled before the County Assembly for deliberation," said Ogogoh. The activist also wants made public the evaluation criteria used to include the score sheet by each tenderer and reveal who the successful bidders are. Also demanded is a copy of the contract and the amount quoted for the tender with its completion date. The Mombasa County Assembly Committee on Environment and Solid Waste Disposal accused the County Department of Environment of failing to honour its invitation to answer questions regarding the tendering process. The Committee led by Chairperson Juma Mwalimu said the Department was evading agreeing that the project was a PPP because it lacked the house approval. Bamburi MCA Patrick Mwavule said that he was not privy to any letter from the leadership of the assembly approving the project. "There was a letter that was written citing that there was an approval from the assembly. I sit in the assembly and have never been part of such a conversation. Confirm to us, has there been any kind of conversation of that nature regarding the services that were to be rendered to the people of Mombasa?" said Mwavule. The assembly said they had requested the tendering documents over one month ago, but the same were never supplied by the management. The MCAs demanded the copy of a daily newspaper where the tender was advertised and the specific dates. However, County Executive Committee Member (CEC) for Environment and Water Kibibi Abdalla said the tendering process that started in January is still ongoing and will be a joint venture between the County of Mombasa and the Ghanaians. Abdalla told the committee that the programme was to be implemented as a joint venture between the county government of Mombasa and Jospong Group, a Ghanaian conglomerate that was awarded the tender. She said the project, which is a World Bank project, was already costed in the previous financial year of 2023/24 and could not be factored again twice in the budget. Abdalla apologised for the late submission of the documents to the committee and said that she was on leave and had left the obligation to Traded CEC Mohamed Osman to take charge of the department, but he was also attending to his ailing father, and the County Secretary Jeizan Faruk had travelled with the governor.

Mombasa County on spot over sh17 billion waste tender without Assembly's approval

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Mombasa County on spot over sh17 billion waste tender without Assembly's approval

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