Proposals for Sh17 billion laptop tenders opened

Information Administration Director Henry Mung’asia (centre) addresses bidders for tenders to supply laptops for Standard One pupils under the Sh17 billion Jubilee flagship project. [PHOTO: WILLIS AWANDU/ STANDARD]

The delayed promise for laptops for Standard One pupils moved a step closer to reality yesterday when proposals for tenders to supply the gadgets were opened.

Eight of the ten firms selected to submit their proposals for the tenders turned up at Teleposta Towers in Nairobi, the headquarters of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Authority—the government agency spearheading the process.

The tender committee chairman Henry Mung’asia, who is the Information administration director, said all the bids will first undergo technical evaluation before the financial bids for the Sh17 billion project is opened.

“The financial bids will be opened after the evaluation of the technical bids. The evaluation will take ten days and tenderers who may not meet the target will get back their technical and financial bids,” said Mr Mung’asia.

The ten firms include University of Nairobi, Moi University, Kenyatta University, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Dedan Kimathi and Meru university, and Strathmore Research and Consultancy Centre.

Other firms are Lenovo East Africa Ltd, Hewlet Packard East Africa Ltd (HP), Smoothel and Data Solutions and Symphony Technologies.

Two tenderers—Strathmore Research and Consultancy Centre and Smoothel and Data Solutions— did not participate in the bidding. Mung’asia explained that Strathmore withdrew from the process while the Smoothel arrived late.

“We received an email today in the morning from Strathmore informing us that they are pulling out of the exercise but Smoothel arrived late,” he said.

He acknowledged that they received many bids but they zeroed in on ten. An evaluation committee will be appointed to go through the bids and come up with the winner.

Each firm, save for HP, have listed partners, which they will work together with. Kenyatta University will partner with BRCK Ltd/Guangzhou Institute of Technology, while Dedan Kimathi University will work with Technology Partcipativa Technologia DA Educacao Ltd.

Ensure installations

JKUAT is partnering with POSITIVO BGH, while Moi partners with JP SA Cout of South Africa. UoN will work with Huawei Technologies Ltd.

The bidders will be evaluated on technical and financial capabilities before being cleared to implement what they have been assigned. The successful firms will have an expanded mandate that will include delivery and installation of the devices, with an ability to develop local assembly capacity.

The devices will be delivered over two financial years; 2015/2016 and 2016/2017.

The winners will also be required to configure and ensure installations of devices are delivered to schools. The winning bidder will also install power strips for charging of Teacher Digital Device (TDD) and Learner Digital Device (LDD) equipment.

Furthermore, they will transfer knowledge to personnel identified by the procuring entity on how to configure, install and trouble shoot faults for the  devices supplied.

The pilot schools have been selected per county on urban, peri-urban and rural categories. According to the document, there are three lots. Lot One consists of schools in 14 counties while Lot Two has 21 counties. Lot Three has 12 counties.

The tender was advertised on September 4 last year for the supply of TDD, LDD, Special Needs Education Learner Digital Device (SNELDD), servers, routers and projectors. Twenty-five firms tendered their documents but 15 firms did not make it.

Laptops are expected to be supplied to primary schools in July. The first batch will have 294,981 laptops and 23,951 TDDs.

In 2014, the High Court nullified a Sh24.6 billion tender to supply primary schools with laptops after it emerged that the process was not fairly conducted.