Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) Chairman Lucas Maitha addresses a
stakeholders meeting during celebration to mark 40 years of service by
the organisation for North Rift region, held at Queen Garden in Eldoret
town on December 10, 2014. A Japanese firm has appealed last week’s
decision by Kebs to award pre-shipment inspection of motor vehicle
contract to its rival saying the process was biased and non-objective.
PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA |
NATION MEDIA GROUP
A Japanese firm has appealed last week’s decision by Kenya
Bureau of Standards to award pre-shipment inspection of motor vehicle
contract to its rival saying the process was biased and non-objective.
Japan
Export Vehicle Inspection Centre (Jevic) has moved to the Public
Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB) seeking to overturn the
tender award by the standards body.
Kebs awarded the
contract last week to another Japanese firm Quality Inspection Service
Japan (QISJ), which currently provides the service together with Jevic
and Auto Terminal Japan.
In papers filed with the
review board, Jevic claims that Kenya Bureau of Standards awarded the
bid to QISJ despite its offer failing to tender conditions.
“The
request for proposals specifically provided that bidders had to provide
three copies of their bid proposals in order to be considered
responsive,” Jevic said in its appeal.
NON-RESPONSIVE
The
firm holds that its competitor QISJ only submitted two copies of its
bid proposal but went on to win the contract that is set to be effective
on 15 January next year.
“It was the applicant’s
(Jevic) understanding that, at that point, that the bid from QISJ was
materially non-responsive for failing to comply with the mandatory
provisions of the instructions to tenderers,” appeal documents signed by
Lee Sayer for Jevic Africa Limited notes.
“Failure by
the procuring entity to reject a non-responsive tender and instead to
evaluate the same and indeed determine it as the winning bid is
completely unfair… such action brings the integrity and fairness of the
entire tender process into question.”
However, Kenya
Bureau of Standards managing director Charles Ongwae in a separate
interview told the Nation that they reserved the right to alter minor
nonconformity in the submitted proposals.
“We reserved
that right, provided the alteration did not affect the relative ranking
of any tenderer,” Mr Ongwae said in the interview last week.
NULLIFY TENDERING
The Japanese firm also cites action by Kebs to issue notices on its website declaring termination of agreement to inspect cars on August 18 last year, also repeated in another notification on August 30th, while this was not the case as being unfair.
The Japanese firm also cites action by Kebs to issue notices on its website declaring termination of agreement to inspect cars on August 18 last year, also repeated in another notification on August 30th, while this was not the case as being unfair.
“The procuring entity
failed to respond to the applicant’s letter dated September 25 and
November 3, 2014 seeking a clarification on the purported termination of
the agreement,” Mr Sayer notes.
In its appeal, Jevic
wants procurement review board to nullify the entire tendering process
and order Kebs to conduct the process afresh and be slapped with the
cost of the proceedings.
Kenya Bureau of Standards
awarded the tender to QISJ on 15 December and had given losers of the
bid a 14-day window to appeal the process.
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