KEMSA defends companies blamed for bungled Ksh.3.7 billion anti-mosquito nets tender

Speaking on Citizen TV's JKLive show, KEMSA CEO Terry Ramadhani and Chairperson Daniel Rono insisted that the two companies, Shobikaa Impex and Partec East Africa Ltd, were the most qualified suppliers.

This is despite the Global Fund flagging the procurement process on grounds that the two companies approved by KEMSA failed to meet mandatory documentation requirements.

"We cleared those companies and we stand by those decisions. This is because if you look at the details of it, they were responsive. We may differ in terms of what exactly it is that they (Global Fund) have looked at… and that whole comprehensive report has been done but we stand by the evaluations we did,” said Ramadhani.

The two however said they agree with the move by the Global Fund to declare that the procurement of the anti-mosquito nets be done by Wambo.org, which is the Global Fund’s procurement arm, due to timeline constraints.

“….we agreed with them that since there are queries that have been raised, if we are to redo this process, we won’t be able to do it in time yet we need Kenyans to access those nets in time. So let’s go direct,” said Ramadhani

“As far as Global Fund was concerned, the errors they pointed out apply technically to all the tenderers. That is how they really said why did we recommend these two if all of them kind of had the same errors. To them, they said we should have failed all of them in totality. To which case our team felt they (companies) may have had errors but there were other people with more errors,” said KEMSA Chairperson Daniel Rono.

On why there are no details of Shobikaa Impex on the Kenyan Registrar of Companies portal, KEMSA CEO Terry Ramadhani said it is because the firm is an Indian-based company, adding that it has traded with KEMSA before.

"This was an Open International Tender. If you search on the Kenyan Registrar of Companies a company that is not Kenyan of course you will not find it. Shobikaa Impex is an Indian company the company is what is registered on PPB in Kenyan. Shobikaa Impex has not only done business with nets in KEMSA this time. They have been there. It's not a new company,” said Ramadhani.

The CEO downplayed the impact of the move taken by the Global Fund, noting that KEMSA has business worth Ksh.50 billion a huge chunk of it being from the Global Fund.

"The nets we are talking about are valued at Ksh.3 billion. The business we do for global Fund is Ksh.30 billion. In fact the entire business for KEMSA is Ksh.50 billion," she said.

Global Fund had floated a tender worth Ksh.3.7 billion for the supply of 10.2 million long-lasting polyethylene and polyester nets to be distributed from November this year to July next year as part of the fight against Malaria mass campaign.

Locally the tender was floated in January this year, but ran into headwinds soon after with the Ministry of Health and the Global Fund clashing on the specifications of the nets to be delivered, resulting in an amendment of the tender and the extension of the same.

A total of 17 bids were received, with five making the cut according to the evaluating committee. However, a review of the tenders by the Global Fund showed that the five bids were not qualified.

Indeed, only two companies, Tianjin Yorkool and Premium Movers, who were deemed unfit by the tenders evaluation committee should have made the cut, while Vka Polymers pvt, Shobikaa Impex, and Partec East Africa, which were ranked as qualified should have been disqualified for incomplete pagination.

The Global Fund in its final assessment of the tenders submitted that the two bids assessed as responsive -- Shobikaa for polyethylene nets and Partec East for polyester nets -- failed to meet the mandatory documentation requirement and should not have proceeded to the technical, financial and post qualification phase. The tender did not yield responsive bids.

The bungled procurement process has now seen the Global Fund cancel the tender and offer it directly to its own procurement wing Wambo.org in a move that is expected to see Kenya lose hundreds of millions of shillings in funding.

If the tender had been handled by Kenya, KEMSA would have received 2% or Ksh.74 million as part of the procurement fee, and 8% or Ksh.295 million as warehousing and distribution charges.