Kenya’s laptop project worth Ksh. 9.7 billion is on a predicament as all of the nine bidders had their quotes higher than the budget.
It happened that one vendor placed a double bid which consequently saw the lowest bidder quoting 28.7 billion, this is actually three times the amount of money the budget holds.
This may force the ministry responsible to fluctuate its budget in order to continue with the project as planned. The initial budget of the project was 17.5 billion including infrastructure, security, content and training.
Kenya’s ministry of Education had officiated the tender to obtain 1.3 laptops this week on Tuesday.
So far the lowest bidder is HP who quoted Ksh.28.7 billion with a unit price of Ksh. 20,639 and the highest bidder being Huwawei who quoted Ksh.60 billion. Other bidders include Samsung electronics with Ksh 39.1 billion, Symphony Technologies with Ksh. 38 billion, Haier Technologies with KSh. 34 billion, ZTE Corporation with KSh.33 billion and Telcom Kenya with KSh32 billion.
Mastec EA Ltd placed two bids quoting Sh32.6 billion in one and Sh31.3 billion in another while Shen Zhen Auto Digital quoted Sh30.3 billion.
Education Permanent Secretary Belio Kipsang’ said he was waiting for the final tender committee report.
The PS, however, dismissed fears that the project could fail because of the vendor quotations. In any case why would critics think so because according to the budget, Sh9.8 billion is for buying the laptops, Sh800 million for training, Sh500 million for digital content and Sh5.8 billion for setting up computer laboratories in 10 primary schools in each of the country’s 290 constituencies.
To add to that the 20,637 printers and the same number of projectors are to be provided in the schools across the country.
The ministry had set high standards for the vendors after placing a Sh228 million bid bond for the laptop tender, locking out many potential bidders from the process.
