· The AG’s office and the Treasury have been increasingly concerned about the malpractices over tender deals by State officials, leading to a severe drain of government funds.
· Recently in the context of the Covid-19, a comprehensive nationwide audit of State projects were completed, leading to close scrutiny of cash-gobbling ventures.
Abuse of procurement systems has been a bane on the Kenyan government for long but now there is hope that an effective government strategy is underway to plug the wastage of resources.
The AG’s office and the Treasury have been increasingly concerned about the malpractices over tender deals by State officials, leading to a severe drain of government funds. Recently in the context of the Covid-19, a comprehensive nationwide audit of State projects was completed, leading to close scrutiny of cash-gobbling ventures. Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani in his draft 2021 Budget Policy Statement (BPS) revealed that the State was targeting Sh152.35 billion in cash savings from cancellations of about a third of stalled public projects. Rationalisation of even a third of the stalled projects could yield up to 1.5 per cent of the GDP in fiscal savings, according to Mr Yatani .
Legal fees, human rights violations, and other court disputes accounted for Sh101.2 billion by the end of 2019. Kenya is facing another Sh769.9 billion in claims from litigation in local and international courts while 700 lawyers from the State Law Office are toiling to clear a huge backlog of such cases. Recently an Sh7.8 billion Covid-19-related procurement scam at the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) made big news. Although it was mandatory that the AG sign off all tenders valued above Sh5 billion, Kemsa officials did not seek the necessary clearance. Kemsa by-passed the AG’s office by splitting the Sh7.8 billion tenders and awarded contracts to 102 firms.
It has been reported that the State is examining the proposal to lower the threshold value of public tenders approved by the office of the Attorney-General to curb abuse of procurement systems. Solicitor-General Kennedy Ogeto disclosed that one proposal under active consideration is to revise the public procurement law and have the AG sign off all public tenders valued at a minimum of Sh500 million. It is expected that such a move will give the government’s principal legal adviser tighter oversight of public contracts. Currently, the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act (PPAD Act) provides that the accounting officer of State entities can prepare contracts in line with the award decision. Only Awards above Sh5 billion are cleared by the AG. Some of the State entities bypassed the procurement law by splitting tenders to avoid scrutiny of the contracts by the AG.
