The Central Bank of Kenya can proceed with the printing of new currency after the Court of Appeal declared the tendering process lawful.
The court set aside the decision by Justice George Odunga, which had declared the tender issued to De La Rue International unlawful.
Justices Erastus Githinji, Asike Makhandia and Sankale ole Kantai ruled there was no evidence to show the tender was unfairly tilted or rigged in favour of De La Rue.
In the case, CBK and De La Rue had moved to the Court of Appeal seeking to overturn the decision by Justice Odunga.
They argued he erred in law by cancelling the tender.
The appeal judges further held that CBK’s decision to allow De La Rue to subcontract was lawful.
Activist Okiya Omtatah had argued that De La Rue’s request to be allowed to subcontract could only be made once evaluation had been done and the tender awarded. He argued that a party cannot subcontract what they do not have.
De La Rue had requested CBK to allow them to subcontract its local affiliates to print the new currency.
The firm had argued that even though it’s a foreign registered company, it had locally registered affiliates with a currency manufacturing plant in Ruaraka that was registered in 1992.
According to De La Rue, it has supplied CBK with currency requirement for almost 25 years and contribute over Sh150 million to the Kenyan economy.
De La Rue said they qualified for the preferential treatment because some of the raw materials would be partially mined or produced in Kenya.
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“It is apparent that all the four prequalified candidates were foreign-controlled entities and only De La Rue could qualify for the preferential margin as envisaged under the PPADA by any stretch of the margin,” the court ruled.
In awarding the tender, CBK applied a 15 per cent margin of preference provided for under Section 28 of the Public Procurement and Disposal Regulations 2006.
The appeal court also faulted judge Odunga for considering the expunged tender documents in his determination arguing that by doing so, the judge misdirected himself resulting to the unfair determination of the tender award in his judgment.
“Upon the documents being expunged, the petition, in our view, had no legs left to stand on,” the court ruled.
Crane AB was among the four firms that bid for the award of the Sh10 billion annual currency printing tender but they lost to De La Rue International, who were successful bidders.
In the case, Crane AB had argues that they were the only successful bidders.