In a bid to cut down cost, the government of Kenya has resorted to making changes to the rules governing the tender for the laptop project.
One notable thing is that there will not be any middle men involved; it has been restricted to laptop manufacturers only.
The government has also left room to negotiate prices with the shortlisted suppliers.
It will also take the responsibility of moving the laptops from the point of entry to schools, be it the sea port or the airport to the schools.
The announcement came as the government extended from November 14 to November 21. The tender for supply of the laptops was re-advertised on October 16th after the previous one was cancelled in August.
As of Thursday, only 58 firms had bought the bidding document compared to 126 in the initial tendering exercise.
“This process is a bit different from the initial one because we have opted for a very selective process that allows the government to negotiate with the shortlisted vendors to arrive at a reasonable price,” said Prof Kaimenyi, Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Education.
The bid bond has been reduced to Ksh50 million from Ksh228 million and the performance bond to Ksh150 million from Ksh3 billion to increase participation.
The number of laptops to be bought had also gone down to 1.28 million from 1.38 million. 20,5337 laptops for teacher will be bought separately.
Some of the bidders include HP, Huawei, Samsung Electronics, Haier Technologies and ZTE Corporation who participated in the initial tendering process that was cancelled in August.
There are plans to spend Ksh17.4 billion annually for three years to buy the laptops, develop digital content, build teachers’ capacity and build computer laboratories for Class Four to Class Eight pupils.
Money has also been set aside to buy 20,637 printers and to distribute a similar number of projectors to each primary school. Some 150 trainers, mostly from secondary schools, have been selected for training.
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