KPC seeks to query contractor over documents filed in court
A Kenya Pipeline Company depot in Eldoret. The firm is expanding its fuel terminal in Nairobi. PHOTO | FILE
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KPC says documents that Nyoro Construction filed in court were part of its confidential bidding documents that would not ordinarily be in possession of sub-contractors seeking to do business with the State agency.
The Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) wants the High Court to summon the managing director of a local engineering firm to answer queries on the authenticity of filed documents.
KPC says that some of the papers that Nyoro Construction’s Josiah Njoroge Njuguna had attached in his affidavits were part of its confidential bidding documents that would not ordinarily be in possession of sub-contractors seeking to do business with the State agency.
“The documents did not come from us and I do not know how they came to be in possession of them since the subcontractors did not acquire them in accordance with the law,” KPC’s legal counsel Gloria Khafafa told the court on Wednesday.
The engineering firm has filed a civil suit accusing the KPC and Indian firm Prashanth Projects of unfairly sidelining them in a Sh5 billion tender for construction of oil storage tanks.
Prashanth sub-contracted Nyoro to comply with procurement laws which compel foreign firms to award a local company at least 40 per cent of the tender.
Ms Khafafa had been summoned to clarify inconsistencies in her previous statements in which KPC admitted to approving the replacement of Nyoro Construction as a local sub-contractor on Prashanth’s request.
She was summoned alongside David King’arui, the local agent for the Indian firm which claimed it had never awarded Nyoro a stake in its consortium.
KPC told the court that when the Indian firm bid for the tender it submitted a letter of agreement showing that Nyoro Construction would be its local subcontractor for civil and mechanical works.
“It was not the intention of KPC to choose which legal vehicle to use as long as 40 per cent threshold of the tender was provided for by a local contractor,” she said.
Ms Khafafa further told the court that Nyoro Construction did not make any appearance to the meetings involving the project from the time the tender was awarded to Prashanth in July 14. She said that the local firm wrote a letter to the State agency protesting the move in March.
“We did not give Nyoro a chance to know why they had been substituted because from the onset it was clear that KPC would not arbitrate between the parties if any disputes between the main contractor and the subcontractor arose,” she said.
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