Two Chinese firms have been controversially awarded Sh20 billion tender to build the Soin-Koru multipurpose dam.
The National Water Harvesting and Storage Authority (NWHSA) signed the deal on Thursday last week with China Jiangxi international Kenya Limited and China Jiangxi International Economic and Technical Cooperation Company.
NWHSA chief executive officer Sharon Obonyo said the two companies will undertake the work where the dam will have a storage capacity of 93.7 million cubic metres, supply 72 million litres of water per day for domestic use, irrigation of 2,570 hectares and generation of 2.5MW of hydropower.
“The project will supply portable water to parts of Kisumu and Kericho counties. It will also provide water for irrigation in the lower areas of Awasi and Ahero, hence economic activities like irrigated farming will be more vibrant in these areas,” she said.
The processes to acquire the tender started in 2020 and have been mired in scandals ever since.
Last year, China Jiangxi Economic Cooperation and China Gezhouba were involved in a vicious legal battle over the award of the tender.
China Gezhouba moved to the procurement review board to contest award of the tender to citing irregularities in the tendering process.
The company reckoned that the NWHSA decision to award the contract to China Jiangxi was irregular and unfair as the rival firm had placed a higher bid of Sh19.9 billion.
Public procurement regulations require that prequalification to evaluate a bidder’s ability to perform the contract obligations is done before the process moves to the technical and financial evaluation stage which awards the contract to ‘the lowest evaluated bidder.
In its appeal to the Public Procurement Administration Review Board (PPARB), China Gezhouba argued that the water harvesting authority did not pick the lowest bidder for the Nyando dam works, causing it to lose the job.
China Gezhouba placed a Sh19.2 billion bid for the job.
However, the NWHSA responded to the appeal arguing that China Gezhouba had failed to meet all the contract requirements and therefore did not make it to the final round of the tendering.
“The Act provides that the successful tender is one with the lowest evaluated price… In this case the applicant was not the lowest evaluated tender and was therefore not denied his rightful advance to the technical and financial evaluation stages,” said NWHSA.
The water harvesting authority said China Gezhouba had, among other things, submitted documents in Chinese whose translation to English language had not been certified.
The firm also failed to commit to buy at least 40 per cent of the supplies used in construction of the dam from local firms, the water harvesting authority says adding that the petitioner also failed to demonstrate capacity through proof of ownership of earthmovers and other equipment for the job.
China Gezhouba is also said to have failed to provide evidence of permanent residency in Kenya.
The water harvesting authority said it is for these reasons that China Gezhoub’s bid was declared non-responsive and did not proceed to the technical and financial evaluation stage.
But China Gezhouba refuted the claims insisting it had complied with all the requirements set out by the water authority in the tender documents. In its filings at the PPARB, the company wants the board to direct the water authority to evaluate the bids afresh, this time round taking into consideration the documents it had submitted.
“The reason provided by the procuring entity… are incorrect and misleading and were arrived at by misapprehending the tender documents submitted by the applicant,” China Gezhouba says in its filing at the PPARB.
China Gezhouba claimed that award of the tender to China Jiangxi was contrary to provisions of the Procurement Act and the Constitution that require procuring entities to ensure cost-effectiveness.
“The award of the tender to the second respondent (China Jiangxi) did not meet the constitutional threshold of fairness, equity, transparency and competitiveness… neither was it in compliance with the principles set out in Section three of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act,” the company says.
China Gezhouba is not new to Kenya’s construction market and has won multi-billion-shilling tenders for construction of major works, including Thwake Dam in Makueni county as well as the Northern Collector Tunnel in Murang’a county.
Other firms that bid for the job were SBI International Holdings at Sh26 billion and Just Nice Construction at Sh22 billion.
The Soin-Koru dam, which has been in the works for years, is supposed to be put up along the River Nyando in Kisumu County to contain perennial flooding as well as improve water access for residents. It is also expected to expand rice farming in Kano Plains.
Parts of Kisumu, Kericho and Nandi counties are expected to benefit from the water supplied by the dam which will be located at the border of Kisumu and Kericho counties.
“Flooding is a frequent phenomenon in the lower reaches of the Nyando River Basin and poses problems to the communities especially in the lower zones of the river basin,” said the authority in the environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) lodged with the National Environment Management Authority.
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