Corporates to jostle for new mega public deals
Multibillion-shilling public contracts are up for grabs, opening the door for local and international firms to battle it out for lucrative deals.
Some of the big-money contracts are for the provision of new or expanded services being rolled out by the agencies, with some likely to be shared by more than one firm. One of the biggest deals up for grabs is the multibillion-shilling contract for running an integrated Excisable Goods Management System (EGMS) for tracking excisable goods.
The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has invited firms to bid for the supply of the EGMS days after the state sharply raised excise stamp duties. The contract is set to elicit a scramble by firms across the world owing to its lucrative nature. For instance, some 21 firms from across the globe, including from the US, India and Ukraine, scrambled for the contract when KRA advertised the EGMS tender in August 2010. It was eventually won by Swiss firm SICPA Security Solutions SA.
Some of the firms beaten by SICPA to the contract included Kenya’s currency printer, De La Rue Currency & Printing Limited.
SICPA contract
The recent five-year SICPA contract, which expired in February 2021, was valued at an estimated Sh17 billion.
Another mega deal is up for grabs at the Ministry of Interior, which has opened the race for the management and administration of the expanded eCitizen portal. The multibillion-shilling eCitizen deals are expected to attract some of the country’s biggest technology and financial service providers, with the winning bidders expected to facilitate government delivery of at least 5,700 services through the portal.
eCitizen is an online portal through which the government provides essential services such as applications for passports, driving licences, business registration certificates, vehicle logbooks, and title deeds.
A heated race is also expected among top banks for a contract to keep billions of shillings in operating funds for the Judiciary, which is recruiting a custodian of the fund that was launched last year. The National Treasury in August deposited Sh9 billion into the kitty’s half-year budget for the financial year 2022/23.
Judiciary Fund Act
In the 2022/23 Budget, the Judiciary was allocated Sh18.9 billion, a Sh1 billion increase from the previous year. The Judiciary Fund was activated last July after years of delay to open an account at the Central Bank of Kenya. The Judiciary Fund Act was passed in 2016 for the Judiciary to retain accruals from investments, court fees and levies. Delayed implementation had forced the judicature to surrender cash collected yearly from court fees and fines to the Treasury.
The Judiciary is now looking for a bank that will facilitate real-time payments into and from the fund and integrate its payment platform with other government payment services. The setting up of the integrated banking system will be implemented in two phases within 24 months.
The Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) also recently invited commercial banks to express interest in a proposed payment system ahead of an April 30 deadline to implement the scheme, which seeks to ensure farmers are paid within two days.
The NCE aims to introduce a Direct Settlement System (DSS) to facilitate efficient payment of growers’ proceeds and recovery of any other commitments owed by the grower to service providers. DSS is popular with commodity traders because it enables transparency and predictability in payments.
The Kenya Railways Corporation is also seeking a supplier for 38.4 million litres of fuel for Standard Gauge Railway passenger and cargo trains. BY DAILY NATION
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