Contracts signed by agencies in national and county governments will from July 1, 2025 no longer be a secret following a new directive to integrate the digital procurement system with the Public Procurement Information Portal (PPIP).
The move is set to shine the spotlight on public institutions that have previously refused to disclose crucial public contracts on the PPIP, with deals valued about Sh2 trillion in the coming fiscal year expected to go live on the portal.
The jobs include development contracts and those with suppliers of different goods and services to the government.
The Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) on Tuesday gave agencies until June 30 to onboard the e-government procurement system, which will facilitate automatic sharing of contracts to the PPIP.
“This will eliminate the need for procuring entities to upload information on the portal. The required reports will automatically be generated and submitted through the E-GPS effective 1st July, 2025,” said PPRA Director-General Patrick Wanjuki.
Mr Wanjuki issued a circular across agencies in national and county governments, terming the new move “a significant step towards enhancing efficiency, transparency, competition and accountability in public procurement.”
The circular was sent to all ministries and government agencies, counties, parliament, judiciary, constitutional commissions and independent offices, and state corporations.
While the PPRA had in 2022 issued a directive to public institutions to upload all tenders and contracts on the PPIP, a portal accessible to the public, for transparency and accountability, many counties and agencies have failed to adhere and even the compliant refused to upload jobs considered controversial.
Last year, PPRA was on the verge of robbing Tana River County of its procurement responsibility after the county failed to upload procurement information on the PPIP.
In the circular, Mr Wanjuki threatened to transfer the procurement responsibility of entities that fail to register on the e-government procurement portal by the end of June, to compliant entities.
“In view of the foregoing, all accounting officers/heads of procuring entities must ensure the registration of their entities to the E-GPS by 30th June, 2025 and that their procurement function staff and users participate in the ongoing training program for E-GPS users organised by the National Treasury in accordance with the National Treasury circular dated 26th March, 2025 cited above,” Mr Wanjuki said.
The Treasury has already declared that starting July it will not sanction any payments to contractors and suppliers outside the e-government procurement system.
Speaking while launching the system in April, Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi said it would promote fairness, transparency and cost-effectiveness in government procurement.
“Going forward, only procurements processed through the platform will be sanctioned and paid for,” Treasury said.
The Treasury allocated Sh700 million for rollout of the system in the year starting July, in a move geared at enhancing transparency and accountability in public procurement.
CS Mbadi said 400 public finance management staff and suppliers from national and county governments have been trained in readiness for full rollout of the system in July 2025.
“The eGovernment procurement system is a departure from the manual processes and will lead to increased bidder participation, enhanced efficiency in processing of procurement requests, and increased authenticity of procurement documents through integration with various Government systems,” CS Mbadi said.
In the fiscal year starting July, the Treasury has tabled a Sh4.29 trillion budget, out of which the spending of about Sh2 trillion is expected to be through the e-government procurement system, including the Sh693 billion development spending for national government.
A 2020 World Bank’s public expenditure review revealed that Kenya would save over Sh85.9 billion annually just by using a digital procurement system.
Use of manual systems has made it difficult to tell who exactly gets paid from public coffers for delivery of different goods and services, as agencies hide the information from the public, extending a culture of opaqueness that has entrenched corruption in government.
The Treasury said the e-government procurement system will also be integrated with key government platforms such as KRA’s iTax, IFMIS, the Business Registration Service, and the Integrated Population Registration System to streamline compliance verification and reduce fraud.
The PPRA circular, however, stated that the authority would publish “all procurement related information that is necessary for the public through the portal.”
