Director General of the Kenya Rural Roads Authority Philemon Kandie has been trapped in a multibillion road construction tender row involving Chinese firms.
Word has it that Infrastructure and Transport CS Kipchumba Murkomen influenced the tender award with blessings from State House.
In a complaint lodged with the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority, KeRRA is accused of procurement fraud in which a road upgrading tender has been awarded to a firm that had placed the highest bid price thereby shortchanging a firm that had bid lowest.
The tender was irregularly awarded to Shengli Engineering Construction with a total bid amount of Sh4,692,818,332 instead of Guanxi Hydroelectric that had the lowest bid amount of Sh3,964,406,845 as per the regulations. Murkomen, a close confidante of William Ruto, is said to have pushed for Shengli Engineering.
According to the complainant, it was done in a conspiracy meant to make sure that the qualification criteria fit the qualifications of particular bidders.
This conspiracy was hatched and executed by a criminal enterprise consisting of corrupt KeRRA members of staff aimed at defrauding Kenyan taxpayers.
One of the firms contesting the tender award claims that it was overquoted by Sh1 billion.
It has since emerged that other than the other bidders whose financial bid was below the estimate, all the other bidders who submitted their financial bids in the other tenders had financial estimates which were way above the budgets of the projects by over Sh1 billion.
“The complainant is aware that KeRRA has made or is about to make an award to a bidder who had the highest financial bid and not the one with the lowest financial bid as provided under Sections 83 and 86 of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act (“the Act”) and Article 227 of the constitution of Kenya,” the complainant wrote.
The tenders are for the completion of stalled road projects being retendered as detailed under Roads 10,000 Programme in 2023/2024.
In a letter dated March 26, PPRA notifies that it has received additional information regarding the tender and warned against taking any action until the matter is conclusively heard and settled.
“We further remind you that as an accounting officer, you have a duty to safeguard public resources, and therefore, any action taken on the tenders should not result to loss of public funds and should adhere to provisions of article 227(1) of the constitution of Kenya, 2010,” the letter read.
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