Bungled Tender: Unveiling the KEMSA Scandal’s Ksh.3.7B Trail
The elimination of the leadership at the Ministry of Health and KEMSA follows a botched procurement of Malaria nets that threatens the lives of millions of people and could cost the country hundreds of millions of shillings.
As the President begins implementing changes at the drugs agency, the Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Health, the CEO and Chairman of KEMSA, as well as the board, were dismissed.
Examining the trail of documents about the botched bid provides hints as to why the purge spread from the authority to the parent ministry.
Less than twenty-four hours after President William Ruto’s pledge to “clean up KEMSA at all costs,” his broom swept across the Ministry of Health.
Principal Secretary for Health in charge of Public Health and Professional Standards, Dr. Josephine Mburu, has resigned, as has KEMSA Board Chairman Daniel Ronoh, and the CEO of the agency, Terry Ramadhan.
Following a series of transactions, Kenya lost a Ksh.3.7 billion Global Fund bid to supply the ministry with more than 10 million insecticide-treated bed nets for mass distribution later in the year.
Former Principal Secretary Dr. Mburu’s actions of interfering with the bidding process led to shambles in the procurement process.
In a letter to KEMSA CEO Terry Ramadhani dated February 21, this year, Dr. Mburu pointed out inconsistencies in the specifications for the nets in the Global Fund tender, as she saw them.
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In her letter, the PS stated, “The specification…on technology misses requirement number 2 “synergist piperonyl Butoxide(PBO) LLINs – Combination nets,” which is inconsistent with the specifications shared by MOH-DNMP.
The following day, on February 22, Ms. Ramadhani complied with the PS’s instructions by writing: “Given this and to rectify the error that has been identified before the closing of the tender on 23rd February 2023, we have extended the tender closing date by 14 days, to 10th March 2023, to allow for clarifications, modifications, and submission of the same.”
In a rebuttal dated February 24, 2023, the Global Fund rejected the justification for the PS’s change of specifications, stating, “The nets being procured are pyrethroid and not PBO, so the requirement for PBOs should not be included in the tender document.”
Two of the sixteen listed companies, Partec East Africa Limited and Shobikaa Impex Ltd, emerged as KEMSA’s business partners after the procurement process.
However, the Global Fund determined that they did not meet the mandatory requirements, causing it to take over the procurement and denying Kenya close to Ksh.400 million in earnings from the tender.
In an interview with Citizen Television, the outgoing KEMSA leadership, the Chairman and the CEO, defended their actions vehemently.
Former Chairman Daniel Ronoh stated, “We went fishing, we handle procurement, warehousing, and distribution, and they assigned us a task. Due to the timelines, we missed a portion of the procurement, so we are now handling the warehousing, distribution, and the portion of the procurement that we had agreed to with them.”
ALSO READ: Ruto takes decisive action: PS Josephine Mburu fired and KEMSA Board dissolved
Ex-CEO Terry Ramadhani stated, “We stand by those decisions because, if you examine the specifics, they were appropriate.” We may disagree on the specifics of what they have examined and the entire comprehensive report has been completed, but we stand by the evaluation that we conducted, and we agreed with them that “since this question has been raised here and here, we will not be able to redo the evaluation in time if we do so.”
Their agreement with the committee that shortlisted Partec East Africa Ltd. and Shobikaa Impex may have been the proverbial final nail in their proverbial coffins.
The Global Fund’s decision to award the contract to Wambo.org was influenced by the tender evaluation committee’s failure to consistently apply evaluation criteria to all bidders.
Monday’s Presidential action resulted in the suspension of four committee members: Antony Chege, Martin Wamwea, Cosmas Rotich, and Lenson Kariuki.
The removal of the immediate former leadership of KEMSA may be the first step in cleaning up the agency, which has been plagued by scandals and mismanagement for years, the most recent example being the stock out of essential health products and technologies, which has left millions of Kenyans vulnerable.
Bungled Tender: Unveiling the KEMSA Scandal’s Ksh.3.7B Trail
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