Energy principal secretary (PS) Joseph Njoroge. PHOTO | FILE
By BRIAN WASUNA, bwasuna@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
- Energy principal secretary (PS) Joseph Njoroge was responding to claims by a Chinese firm that lost the coal power plant job, HCIG, that the Ministerial Tender Committee relaxed the bidding rules to enable investment firm Centum to bag the Sh174 billion job.
- HCIG had claimed in a petition it filed in the High Court that the Energy ministry, the agency that presided over the tendering process, breached procurement rules when it allowed Centum into the bidding race after its initial disqualification.
The Ministry of Energy has denied that it bent
tendering rules in favour of one bidder in the multi-billion shilling
coal power plant contract.
Energy principal secretary (PS) Joseph Njoroge says in a
replying affidavit to one of the losing bidders’ petition that the
tender committee decided to re-evaluate the seven bidders who had been
knocked out of the race, including Centum, after it found that some documents were not available at the close of the bidding period.
“The Ministerial Tender Committee at its meeting on
December 5, 2013 approved the re-evaluation of seven unsuccessful
bidders. The re-evaluation committee recognised the unavailability of
documents by considering both the hard and soft copies that had been
submitted,” Mr Njoroge says.
The PS was responding to claims by a Chinese firm
that lost the coal power plant job, HCIG, that the Ministerial Tender
Committee relaxed the bidding rules to enable investment firm Centum to
bag the Sh174 billion job.
HCIG had claimed in a petition it filed in the High
Court that the Energy ministry, the agency that presided over the
tendering process, breached procurement rules when it allowed Centum
into the bidding race after its initial disqualification.
The Chinese firm reckons that the Centum-Gulf
Energy consortium was not among the initial 26 that submitted bids for
the project, but somehow emerged in the shortlist of 10 that the
ministry later published.
The Ministry of Energy has vigorously denied the
alleged bias, saying all bidders benefitted from the revaluation
exercise that took place after the initial publication of the list of
bidders.
Mr Njoroge says in a replying affidavit that HCIG,
which partnered with Liketh for the tender, also benefited from the
relaxed rules, as it had not submitted some documents in hard copy.
“Upon conclusion of re-evaluation, it was
established that whereas the expression of interest submitted by HCIG
did not contain a hard copy of the power generation licence as required,
the scanned documents in the CD submitted contained the said
documents,” he added.
Centum had initially partnered with Sepco and
Thermax in a consortium that was knocked out at the expression of
interest stage of the tendering.
Gulf Energy, which Centum finally partnered with, was initially knocked out after one of the partners in the initial consortium was found to have flouted procurement rules.
Gulf Energy, which Centum finally partnered with, was initially knocked out after one of the partners in the initial consortium was found to have flouted procurement rules.
Tata Power was kicked out after it was discovered
that it had placed a joint bid with Gulf Energy and submitted a separate
bid as an independent entity contrary to the Public-Private Partnership
Act.
Gulf Energy CEO Francis Njogu has defended his
company’s return to the race, insisting that the law allows a bidding
consortium to replace members who have stepped down.
“By a letter dated February 25, the Centum-Gulf
consortium wrote to the ministry seeking approval to replace Cennergi,
which had withdrawn from the joint bid. By its letter dated March 14,
the ministry requested the Centum-Gulf consortium to submit bona fides
of the replacing members,” said Mr Njogu.
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