By The Weekly Vision
The Public Procurement Administrative Board has nullified a tender, No. MINA/NPS/KPS/015/2023-2025, awarded by the National Police Service (KPS) for the supply and delivery of uniform materials for the Administration Police Service (APS) and General Service Unit (GSU) from local textile manufacturers.
Tenders were opened on June 13, 2023, and 46 companies sent their tenders. The preliminary tender evaluation report revealed that 19 tenders were nonresponsive, while 29 were responsive and proceeded to the next stage.
The evaluation committee visited the premises of all 29 responsive bidders, and in the end, 9 tenders were found to be nonresponsive while 10 were found to be responsive. The committee later conducted negotiations with bidders, which were found to be responsive at the financial evaluation stage. At the end of negotiations, bidders who did not agree to match their prices with the lowest evaluated price set out in the award range were not considered for the award. During the negotiations, Rivatex East African Ltd. indicated that they had underquoted in their bid as prices have since gone up and requested a 30% price increase for each item quoted.
In a professional opinion, the head of supply chain management, Mr. Joel Ngolekol, approved the award of tender on October 15, 2023; however, on November 27, 2023, Rivatex East Africa Ltd. appealed after the firm received a letter that her bid was not successful due to the reason “you decreased your quoted price and requested a 30% price increase for each item.”.
Rivatex East Africa described the reasons for the disqualification as opaque, unlawful, not objective, and lacking quantifiable reasons. On their part, the national police agreed that Rivatex East Africa was the lowest bidder but refused to adjudge the prices during a negotiation meeting held on July 25, 2023.
The ruling by the board dated November 28, 2023, reads, “In the circumstances, the board finds that the procuring entity failed to comply with the requirements of the tender document.”
The board therefore nullified and set aside a letter of notification of award dated October 17, 2023. Further, the board ordered the National Police to reconvene and direct the tender committee to re-admit Rivatex East Africa Ltd. and evaluate the tender together with other tenderers that made it to the financial evaluation stage and moved to proceed to its lawful and logical conclusion, taking into account the board’s findings.
