Works on Parliament office block begin

By MOSES MICHIRA

Parliament will this morning break ground for the construction of a multi-billion shilling office block in a controversial tender in which the taxpayer may have lost more than Sh200 million.

China Jiangxi International, the winning bidder, will undertake the project at Sh5.9 billion, Sh210 million more than the bid submitted by another Chinese company, China Wu Yi.

China Wu Yi was disqualified on a ‘minor’ technicality, which caused a major split among members of the Tender Evaluation Committee.

Documents obtained by The Standard reveal that the committee disqualified the firm, the lowest bidder,  because it had an unrelated case pending before court.

“…we should consider this (China Wu Yi’s litigation history) as a minor deviation which cannot affect the performance of the contractors and therefore not sufficient to disqualify any bidder,” reads correspondence from a member to the chairman of the committee, in part.

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China Wu Yi, the committee had established, failed to declare part of its litigation history to the prospective employer – the Parliamentary Service Commission.

The new building will house offices for members of the National Assembly and the Senate when completed in about three years’ time.

WDK Ngumo, the chief superintendent engineer at the then Ministry of Public Works, was the author of the letter that was addressed to FM Kingori, the chairman of the Tender Evaluation Committee.

Eng Ngumo had protested the exclusion of China Wu Yi from the tendering process that he feared may have been bent in favour of one of the bidders.

Requirements

“If the contrary (disqualifying the lowest bidder) be the case, kindly attach this letter to the final evaluation report for the same to serve as my reservations,” Ngumo protested in the letter.

His views were ignored and consequently China Wu Yi was disqualified, leaving China Jiangxi as the lowest bidder. Other bidders were Milicons Ltd’s Sh6 billion and China Railway International’s Sh7.8 billion.

The committee was later to rule that none of the bidders had met all the mandatory requirements and proposed to re-tender.

This decision was challenged by China Jiangxi International at the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board.