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Motorists face longer wait for new high-tech vehicle number plates

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A vehicle is fitted with a number plate. New plates will have computer micro-chips. PHOTO | FILE

Motorists will have to wait longer for computerised number plates that were expected to be in use this September owing to raging court battles between contractors seeking to supply raw materials.

The High Court has reversed a decision by the Public Procurement Administrative and Review Board (PPARB) to award supply deals for hot stamping foils and blank number plates to local firm Tropical Technologies.

Hot stamping foils are thin metallic coats placed the blank number plates.

Justice George Odunga ordered that bidding for one of two tenders for the supply of hot stamping foils be done afresh. He also ordered the PPARB to hear afresh a review of the blank number plates tender.

Ugandan firm MIG International and Germany’s Hoffman International GmbH had sued the PPARB for reversing their award of the two tenders and handing the lucrative deals to Tropical Technologies.

MIG was to supply the hot stamping foils at $1.4 million (Sh140 million) while Hoffman was to deliver blank number plates for $6.9 million (Sh690 million). Both supply deals were reversed and awarded to Tropical Technologies.

Justice Odunga held that the PPARB did not grant a fair hearing to all the parties in reviewing the tender for blank number plates and the second hot stamping foil tender that was still up for grabs.

The PPARB review proceedings are to establish whether Tropical Technologies was the lowest evaluated dealer, and whether Kenya Prisons Service altered tender documents in the run up to evaluation of bids.

The Ministry of Interior had in the initial review proceedings claimed that the taxpayer would have to part with an additional Sh4.6 billion for the hot stamping foils tender and an extra Sh315 million for the blank number plates deal if Tropical Technologies is upheld as the winner.

“In failing to consider whether the Kenya Prisons Service had the funds appropriated to it sufficient to contract Tropical Technologies at their quoted prices, the PPARB failed to consider a material factor and if the allegation that the decision of the PPARB amounts to directing the Prisons Service to contract outside the funds appropriated for the tender is true, the direction may well amount to an illegality.”

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Justice Odunga ruled that the PPARB ought not to have awarded Tropical Technologies the hot stamping foils tender without considering bids submitted by other firms, and it overstepped its mandate in doing so.

“The PPARB is directed to hear all the parties on the issue of the alteration of the forms and whether Tropical’s quoted prices were within the funds appropriated by the Kenya Prisons Service towards the said tender,” Justice Odunga ruled.

The new generation number plates are part of a plan by the government to crack down on carjackers and quickly identify vehicles used in the commission of crime.

The hi-tech plates will be fitted with micro-chips which will store data on the car’s chassis number, the owner’s personal identification number, contacts and past traffic offences.

The plates can be scanned by traffic police using chip-readers from a distance of up to about 100 metres.