Laptops reduced in new tender

PHOTO | DIANA NGILA | FILE Education cabinet secretary Prof Jacob Kaimenyi during a press briefing on the laptop project tenders at Jogoo House on October 17, 2013.  NATION MEDIA GROUP

In Summary

• To appeal to more bidders, the bid security was reduced to Sh50 million from Sh228 million. To reduce costs, content-sharing platform has been removed
• In the previous tender, HP Commercials was the lowest bidder quoting Sh28.7 billion — three times the government budget

By ISAAC ONGIRI
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The primary schools laptops have been reduced from 1.3 million to 1.2 million.

The additional 20,537 laptops for teachers will be bought separately according to a tender advertised on Tuesday.

Price negotiations will be allowed if bidders quote more than the government’s budget.

A top Education ministry official said that permission had been sought as required from the Public Procurement Oversight Authority to allow change of tender. The laptops will cost Sh17.5 billion.

In August, a ministry tender asked for the supply of 1,378,622 laptops, 20,673 printers and a similar number of projectors. (READ: State invites fresh laptop bids)

To appeal to more bidders, the bid security was reduced to Sh50 million from Sh228 million. To reduce costs, content-sharing platform has been removed.

“Content sharing management platform and class management is critical. Content sharing platform should be a fully functional learning system,” read a clause in the previous tender. This has now been deleted.

On Tuesday, Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi and Principle Secretary Belio Kipsang were not available for comment. “I am in a meeting in Paris,” Dr Kipsang said.

FREE BROADBAND

Some bidders have called for further review.

Safaricom chief executive Bob Collymore said if they were allocated additional spectrum for a 4G or LTE networks over the next 24 months, they would provide free broadband access to all public primary schools with the laptops.

In the previous tender, HP Commercials was the lowest bidder quoting Sh28.7 billion — three times the government budget while Huawei of China quoted the highest, Sh60.5 billion.

Others were Samsung Electronics (Sh39.1 billion), Symphony Technologies (Sh38 billion), Haier Technologies (Sh34 billion), ZTE Corporation (Sh33 billion) and Telkom Kenya (Sh32 billion).

Mastec EA Ltd placed two bids quoting Sh32.6 billion in one and Sh31.3 billion in another while Shen Zhen Auto Digital quoted Sh30.3 billion.

Of the Sh 17.5 billion set aside for the laptops, Sh800 million would be spent on training, Sh500 million for digital content and Sh5.8 billion for setting up computer laboratories in 10 primary schools in each of the country’s 290 constituencies.

Each school would be supplied with about 50-100 laptops next year