State cancels the Laptop Project tender process

By Standard Digital Reporter

NAIROBI, KENYA: The Government has now cancelled the Laptop Project tender for schools over a budget deficit as bidders exceeded the budgetary projections.

Education Cabinet Secretary Prof Jacob Kaimenyi announced that the tender process was canceled as lowest bidder quoted Sh 32b against an anticipated budget of Sh 2b.

The entire project is estimated to cost some Sh50 billion to target over 1.3 million pupils in public primary schools. Government documents indicate that some 425,000 pupils will be the first beneficiaries of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) program to start in January next year.

The costs should include training of teachers and for electricity connection to various primary schools.

Kaimenyi however insisted that the Jubilee Government would work hard to ensure that the gadgets would be delivered to schools in the first quarter of the next year. He said his Ministry would go into consultations with other sectors of the Government to see how they could achieve this.

The laptop project was a key campaign promise of the Jubilee Government and President Uhuru Kenyatta has repeatedly said that his Government would fulfill the promise to provide free laptops to class 1 pupils in public schools.