Kenya’s High Court has ordered Kenya Power and Lighting Company (NSE:KPLC) to proceed with a KES 6bn ($46.51mn) smart meters contract that had been cancelled, handing a legal victory to Chinese manufacturer Hexing Technology and its local partner Magnate Ventures, The Standard reported.
Justice Roselyn Aburili ruled that the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board acted unlawfully when it annulled parts of the tender.
“By annulling the awards in Categories 2 and 3 and directing fresh tendering, the Board reopened and re-determined issues that had already been conclusively settled by a superior court in direct defiance of unambiguous orders prohibiting re-tendering and definitive findings that the tender categories were separate and distinct,” Aburili said as quoted by The Standard.
The court found that the board’s October decision to re-advertise effectively amounted to a lower body re-litigating matters already determined by the High Court.
Hexing Technology, which manufactures electricity meters and smart grid products, and Magnate Ventures separately sued the procurement board and Kenya Power, arguing that cancelling the awards breached binding court orders and violated their legitimate expectations.
Hexing told the court that Chint Meters and Electric Kenya had tried to overturn its disqualification by pushing for a fresh tender despite not being a valid bidder, and that Justice John Chigiti’s earlier ruling declaring the tender valid was binding on both Kenya Power and the procurement board.
Magnate Ventures said the board wrongly faulted Kenya Power for not inspecting all factories, noting inspections were only required for bidders without prior supply history, and that due diligence had been properly conducted on Abcos Industrial Ltd and House of Procurement Ltd, which were awarded Category 3 contracts.
The procurement board said it had only nullified awards in two categories and complied with court orders, but argued the evaluation process lacked transparency and relied on inconsistent due diligence and outdated market surveys.
KPLC told the court it urgently needs 420,000 meters, warning supply gaps are causing public harm, and that litigation had pushed losses beyond KES 7bn ($54.27mn) while forcing re-tendering against its procurement plans.
The ruling has broader implications for Kenya’s energy sector and public procurement system. KPLC, the electricity distributor majority-owned by the Kenyan government, supplies power to a population of about 56mn, of whom roughly 76% had access to electricity by 2023. Urban coverage is near universal, but nearly a quarter of Kenyans, mostly in rural areas, remain without electricity, according to IEA data
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