Women and youth firms fail to absorb tenders quota

Jobseekers in Nairobi during a past call for applications. FILE PHOTO | NMG

By EDWIN MUTAI
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Summary

• The disadvantaged groups only managed to take up contracts worth Sh13.6 billion out of Sh19 billion that were reserved by procuring entities at the national and county levels of government.
• The Public Procurement Regulatory Authority says the uptake of the reserved procurement spend by the groups is still low at 13 per cent.

Enterprises owned by women, youth and the disabled have no capacity to absorb billions of shillings in contracts reserved for them by procurement entities, a new report shows.

The disadvantaged groups only managed to take up contracts worth Sh13.6 billion out of Sh19 billion that were reserved by procuring entities at the national and county levels of government.

The Public Procurement Regulatory Authority says the uptake of the reserved procurement spend by the groups is still low at 13 per cent.

“Procuring entities are reserving procurements for uptake by the enterprises owned by youth, women and persons with disabilities (PWDs), but the uptake of the reserved procurement spend is still low, averaging 13 per cent,” PPRA says in a report to Parliament.

The report on the performance of the special groups under the 30 per cent preference and reservation scheme covering the period January to June 2020 also indicts procuring entities for failing to reserve the mandatory 30 per cent of their annual procurement spend to the beneficiaries.

The report shows that procuring entities reserved an average of 27.28 per cent of the cumulative annual procurement spend.

During the period under review148 procuring entities from national and county governments reported, cumulatively planned to spend Sh69.5 billion on procurement of goods, works and services.

“Of this amount, Sh18.95 billion was reserved for procurement of goods, works and services from firms owned by youth, women and PWDs.

“This implies that a majority of procuring entities at both levels of government reserved less than the required minimum of 30 per cent,” the report says.

The national government and county government made average percentage reservation of 26 per cent and 28.94 per cent respectively.

“In terms of the number and value of contracts awarded to the disadvantaged groups, the procuring entities that reported awarded a total of 13,802 contracts worth Sh13,642,324,017,” PPRA said.

Of the total contracts, 11,641 contracts of Sh8,997,304,710 was awarded by the national government entities while 2,161 contracts worth Sh4,645,019,306 was issued by county government entities.

The women category received the highest share of 7,051 or 51 per cent of the contracts followed by youth category at 5,810 (42.1 per cent) contracts while PWDs received the least at 941 (6.82 per cent) of the contracts.

“In terms of value of the contracts, the youth category received the highest share of Sh6.5 billion (47.57 per cent) followed by women at Sh5.98 billion (43.86 per cent) and PWDs at Sh1.16 billion (8.57 per cent,” the report states.

State corporations topped the list of the number of contracts awarded to the disadvantaged groups at 6,140 followed by Ministries and State departments (2,438), universities, colleges, polytechnics and technical institutions (1,859) and Constitutional Commissions and Independent Offices (1,204).

County executives and County Assemblies awarded the groups 2051 and 110 contracts respectively

Of the 148 procuring entities that report on contract awarded to the disadvantaged groups, 124 were from national government and 24 from county governments.