The Kwale County tender committee headed by Alex Onduko and Lillian Odero are said to have been pushing to cut a deal with the management of Trikaka Enterprises Ltd while the CEC Joanne Nduku Nyamasyo was rooting for Unique Folio Investment Ltd in a tender for the delivery of maize seeds
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All is not well at the Kwale County Government following a serious fallout between the CEC in charge of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Joanne Nduku Nyamasyo and members of the department’s tender committee over a Ksh. 19M tender. The tender committee is headed by Alex Onduko while the procurement officer is Lillian Odero who is said to have cut a deal with the management of Trikaka Enterprises Ltd while the CEC Joanne Nduku Nyamasyo was rooting for Unique Folio Investment Ltd in a tender for the delivery of maize seeds. According to available documents, the Kwale County Government through the Department of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries on 20th January 2023 invited interested firms to bid for tender No.1162082-22/23 for the supply and delivery of maize seeds.
According to the minutes of the tender committee dated 2nd February 2023, only two firms Trikaka Enterprises Ltd and Unique Folio Investment Ltd put in their bids. At the financial evaluation stage, Unique Folio Investment Ltd was the lowest evaluated tender after quoting Ksh. 19,400,400.
However, a professional opinion dated 20th February 2023 by the procurement officer Lillian Odero dismissed the award to Unique Folio Investment Ltd saying it had attached forged documents and dismissed the committee’s proposal to award Unique Folio Investment Ltd the tender. She, therefore, recommended that Trikaka Enterprises Ltd which had quoted Ksh. 19,980,000 to be awarded the tender.
This move forced Unique Folio Investment Ltd to seek review of the same at the Public Administration Review Board through a letter dated 13th March 2023. It was later discovered that the said documents belonged to the company when it was first registered as a business name and later converted to a public limited company and that the company is the same. Some of the documents submitted had the name Unique Folio Investment Ltd while others had the name Unique Folio Investment.
In a ruling dated 3rd April 2023, the review board cancelled the letter of award dated 9th March 2023 to Trikaka Enterprises Ltd and ordered for the tendering process to move to its logical conclusion. It will be interesting to see how the two camps will handle this specific tender now that the review board has cancelled the previous award and ordered the process to proceed.
