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KenGen fights to proceed with Olkaria plant consultancy work
A geothermal well at Kenya Electricity Generating Company PLC’s (KenGen) Olkaria site undergoes discharge testing in preparation for electricity generation on February 21, 2025.
Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) has moved to court to challenge a decision of the procurement watchdog, directing it to re-do a multi-million tender for consultancy services of the planned Sh31.9 billion Olkaria VII geothermal plant.
Appearing before Justice John Chigiti yesterday, KenGen said it was aggrieved by the decision of the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board on June 11, cancelling the award, which had been awarded to ELC Electroconsult.
In cancelling the award, the board directed KenGen to reconvene the tender evaluation committee and re-evaluate the tenders submitted by two firms –JV (joint venture) of Sintecnica Engineering S.R.L & Steam S.R.L and JV of Exergy International S.R.L. & Pozitif Enerji.
Justice Chigiti directed the parties to file their submissions and he will deliver his judgment on July 24.
ELC Electroconsult had quoted a price of Euros 18,162,835 (about Sh2.7 billion) while the JV of Sintecnica Engineering & Steam quoted about Sh2.5 billion.
The review board had directed KenGen to take into account the conclusive findings it made on the technical evaluation and the total evaluated prices, in accordance with the financial evaluation criteria.
KenGen, however, said the decision of the board amounted to directing it to award the tender to a party, as per their pre-determined scores at technical stage, yet it is not provided for the in the tender document
“The board in the decision of June 11, committed a fundamental misdirection or a fundamental error and acted in excess of jurisdiction by introducing a method of scoring that is not contained in the tender document,” KenGen said in the application.
The listed firm said the board usurped the evaluation committee’s powers and committed an error in carrying out a re-evaluation, awarding technical scores in a method not provided for and directing it to proceed with a re-evaluation.
KenGen’s acting general manager, supply chain Vincent Mamboleo said the decision by the board clearly pre-determines the winner and ‘all that is required is rubber-stamping of the same by the evaluation Committee’.
“I aver that the further re-evaluation ordered in the impugned decision of June 11, was merely intended to rubber-stamp the erroneous extraneous scoring at technical stage as introduced by the board which lacked bona fide,” he said.
In reply, Matteo Quaia, the chief executive officer of Steam and a party to the joint venture between Sintencnica Engineering and Steam, opposed the case.
He said the board found that the evaluation committee improperly introduced an undisclosed sub-criteria and adopted a comparative methodology not contemplated in the tender document. Mr Quaia added that the evaluation committee denied scores to the bidder who had met all the requisite qualifications.
“...the board simply substituted or revised the marks awarded based on the technical weighting and awarded both the 2nd and 3rd respondents (the two losing bidders) a total of technical score of 77.6 marks out of 80 marks, which was accurate reflection of both parties full compliance with the technical evaluation requirements,” he said.
