President cancels tenders worth Sh288bn for flouting e-procurement directive
What you need to know:
11 principal secretaries who defied orders to use e-procurement system now face the sack.
20 public officials given seven days to explain why they failed to use electronic financial system.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has cancelled tenders worth Sh288 billion and threatened to sack 11 principal secretaries whose ministries and departments failed to use the government e-procurement system.
Heads of 20 ministries, State departments and agencies were also given seven days to explain their decision to purchase goods and services worth Sh32.8 billion outside the e-procurement system, failure to which they will be sacked and prosecuted.
Sources told the Nation the tenders were suspected to have been procured corruptly, prompting the President to crack the whip.
Also cautioned are heads of six constitutional commissions, the Auditor-General’s office, the Attorney-General’s chambers and the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) that were accused of operating outside the electronic system.
The e-procurement system is a component of a unified government financial system — the Integrated Financial Management Information System — that was adopted in 1995 as the sole accounting system for public expenditure.
A circular signed by Head of Civil Service Joseph Kinyua accused the PSs, the heads of commissions, the Auditor-General’s office, the AG’s chambers and IPOA of ignoring the e-procurement guidelines, which were issued by National Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich on May 7.
Before that, a presidential executive order issued on March 6 had required all government procurement to be carried out in line with the system.
The affected are the ministries of Energy and Petroleum, Health, Labour and Social Services, Industrialisation, departments of Education, Higher Education and Technology, Transport, Infrastructure, Agriculture and Water, and Regional Authorities.
The Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC), National Land Commission, Kenya National Human Rights Commission, the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC), the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and the Commission for Revenue Allocation were also put on notice.
