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{
    "id": 1145025,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1145025/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 224,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Emurua Dikirr, KANU",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kipyegon Ng’eno",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1453,
        "legal_name": "Johana Ngeno Kipyegon",
        "slug": "johana-ngeno-kipyegon"
    },
    "content": "(Amendment) Act. It is intended to cure some of the bottlenecks that make the procurement process strenuous in our country. I do not want to speak much about it but I will look at a few amendments that have been proposed. I support them. They are geared towards making the procurement process easier. I want to speak on costing, which is part of the amendments. I do not know if it is Clause 5. It talks about a survey that is to be done by the head of procurement, especially on supplies and costing of materials that are supplied, procured or tendered. Remember, the prices of most of the things that are procured are exaggerated. For example, a product that costs Kshs200 in the market is costed at Kshs800. That is almost triple the market price. So, I support this Amendment Bill. It will ensure that whatever costing is done – be it for building roads and houses or for buying and supplying equipment – will be as per the exact pricing in the market so that if there is any variant, it will be a small variation. I also support sub-contracting. If a main contractor fails to complete a project he is undertaking, it should be easier for the relevant Government entity to sub-contract that project so that it does not stall. We have had many situations where projects stall because the contract prices were exaggerated. Instead of cancelling such projects and going through another serious procurement process, we should look at the sub-contracting alternative. On inclusion of other bodies that may not necessarily be registered contractors, I suggest consideration of local contractors, sole proprietors, partnerships and cooperative societies. These bodies should also be considered when giving out contracts so that we do not just deal with limited companies alone. We need to give opportunity to people who may not qualify for registration as limited companies but are registered as cooperative societies and sole proprietors. These are people who are deep in the villages and they qualify to undertake some of these contracts. The law should not deny them the opportunity of accessing these contracts. I also want to speak on cancellation of contracts. It is part of the amendments in this Bill. The problem that we have in this country is that the process of cancelling a contract is long. It takes ages. If somebody fails to complete a project, we should not have stringent rules that make it so difficult to cancel the contract. There are so many projects in this country that have stalled for between 20 and 30 years. The projects are not complete because the procuring entities fear cancelling the contracts. They are sure that it will take them a long time to complete the cancellation and retendering processes. We need to bite the bullet and make sure that we change the process of contract cancellation and its timeframe. If we do that, we will make it easier to cancel a non-performing contract and move this county forward. I have not seen anything on persons with disabilities in this Bill. We should bring an amendment to include persons with disabilities. Looking at how their interests have been secured in the tendering process, they are only exempted from certain tendering procedures but they are not exempted from paying taxes. I believe our society has close to 0.05 per cent of persons living with disabilities. The rest of the country’s population comprise of about 99.999 per cent of able- bodied people. Therefore, it should be our responsibility, as those who have no disabilities, to allow these people to participate in tendering. Sometimes we categorise a road tender as only for PWDs. That is not enough. We need to allow them to undertake the construction works without paying VAT. What is VAT? Normal people can pay VAT. Why should we force PWDs to pay VAT and yet they are few and they have problems? They have families and they need all this money to provide for their day-to-day necessities. We should not be mean to deny these people access to their contract money. Lastly, I want to speak to the question of reduction of the procurement period. Providing for 14 days or 21 days or 28 days is to prolong the process. I think we should go further and The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}