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The change of an evaluation criterion by Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) led to the country losing a Sh3.7 billion mosquito net tender, fresh details indicate.

Senators allege that the move by Global Fund to cancel the multi-billion-shilling tender in a rush pointed to the international organisation possibly having a preferred bidder.

Yesterday, the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) told Senators that having pagination as an evaluation criterion greatly influenced the decision by the Global Fund to terminate the multi-billion-shilling tender as two firms passed as responsive by Kemsa did not meet the requirement.

PPRA Director General Patrick Wanjuki told the Senator Jackson Mandago (Uasin Gishu) that the procurement law does not provide for pagination as an evaluation criterion but just a requirement in the tender invitation stage.

Evaluation criterion

Citing Section 74 of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, 2022, Wanjiku stated that the section only states that a tender document must have the pages serialised by the bidder for each bid submitted.

“The fact that Kemsa included pagination as an evaluation criterion, all the bidders failed and so even the two who were deemed responsive by the Authority should have also failed,” said Wanjuki.

However, the law does not have pagination as a mandatory evaluation criteria and that is where KEMSA shot itself on the foot by including it as a criterion.

Mandago said that sequential pagination is provided for as a deterrent against plucking or addition of pages of tender documents.

The DG was emphatic that the fact that it was made mandatory made it impossible for the criterion to be overlooked as the onus of the pagination lies on the bidder.

He said that the two companies deemed as having responsive tenders by Kemsa should not have qualified as their tender documents were not serialised and sequentially paginated.