The National Treasury now expects to fully automate public tendering processes from July 1, 2025, a variation from an earlier directive by President William Ruto that a digital procurement platform be in place by the end of March 2025.
Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi said that the automated platform would undergo a three-month test run before going fully live on July 1.
“By April 1, we want almost all government departments to be onboarded, and then we will do a test run for three months. By July 1, there should be no excuse,” the CS said on Wednesday.
“The National Treasury has been dragging its feet in implementing an e-procurement system for nearly 10 years,” the President said during his State of the Nation Address on November 21, 2024.
“Today, I direct the National Treasury to roll out the e-procurement system by the end of the first quarter of 2025 and ensure that, going forward, only procurement undertaken through this system is sanctioned,” he added.
The directive followed a series of missed deadlines to roll out the e-procurement system (e-GP), which is estimated to cost nearly Sh5.05 billion on completion, where all government contracts will be initiated, evaluated and awarded.
The e-GP system was initially set for roll-out in July last year, but the plan was hurt by budget shortfalls, forcing the Treasury to provide special funding for the project.
In January last year, the exchequer had told the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it was piloting the new system in 12 ministries and State departments.
The e-GP is part of the reform agenda pushed by the IMF to promote transparency in public procurement.
It will ensure that all public tenders and asset sales are conducted electronically, minimising human interaction and increasing transparency in big-ticket government deals where taxpayers lose an estimated one-third of the annual budget each year.
The US has previously claimed that American companies have encountered cases where authorities at the national and county levels continue to directly solicit bribes for government contracts and other approvals.
“Corruption remains a substantial barrier to doing business in Kenya. US firms routinely report direct requests for bribes from all levels of the Kenyan government,” former US Trade Representative Katherine Tai wrote in the 2024 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE) in April last year.
Treasury has already moved claims payments to online platforms, disrupting the cartel network that has for long exploited suppliers and contractors by delaying approval of disbursements to solicit bribes.
The enhanced national Ifmis has shifted the management of purchase orders and invoices online in a bid to make the processing of payments to suppliers more efficient and transparent. The enhanced system, which went live on February 14, 2022, has removed human interaction and enables suppliers at the national and county levels of government to receive purchase orders generated by Ifmis through email.
