• A procurement consulting firm that advised the Ministry of Health on the multi-billion medical equipment was on Tuesday put on the spot for 'misleading' the government.
• Firm's boss said they had deployed enough manpower that worked overnight to deliver the report within three days.
Image: FILE
Senators on Tuesday criticised a procurement consulting firm that advised the Ministry of Health on the medical equipment scheme for 'misleading' the state.
The lawmakers wondered how the firm delivered a value for money assessment in just four days.
SPA Infosuv East Africa Limited carried out a value for money assessment for the Sh63 billion Managed Equipment Service programme.
The firm was picked alongside audit form PKF Kenya through restricted tendering for Sh9.6 million to advise the Ministry on the programme.
The Senate ad-hoc committee probing the MES pressed the company’s CEO Joseph Ogachi to explain how it submitted value for money assessment report only four days after they signed the contract.
Ogachi was also put to task to explain why it produced the report before visiting various health facilities to establish if they had the capacity to host the equipment.
“You were contracted and signed the contract in October 13, 2014 and four days later you handed in a huge document that required you to carry out an overall assessment of MES in the whole of Kenya to give them an opinion to rely on in four days later. Isn’t that curious?” Bungoma Senator Moses Wetangula asked.
Ogachi said they had deployed enough manpower that worked overnight to deliver the report within three days.
He said that the Ministry had piled pressure on them to produce the report within the shortest time possible so that it could roll out the programme.
“At the time, a new government had just come in which was giving us pressure to expedite the work,” Ogachi said.
However, the committee members led by chairperson Fatuma Dullo rubbished the justification.
The demanded to know whether the firm signed the contract when it was already working on the project.
“[We believe] you were part of the connivers of fraudulent dealing to fleece the country of its money. That is why it took you only four days to produce a 100-page document,” Wetangula said.
Senators Enock Wambua (Kitui) and Millicent Omanga (Nominated) said it was not possible for the company to complete the work within such a short time.
“If you were part and parcel of a scheme to rob from the public then it is a big shame. It is a shame to steal from dying patients,” Wambua said.
Dullo questioned why the firm's officials failed to visit the counties' health facilities to assess their needs before advising the ministry.
“How did you arrive at a comprehensive report that you submitted to the ministry if you did not visit the counties? You should have gone to the counties and assess what they needed first,” Dullo said.
The Auditor General in his report had flagged the award on the restricted procurement tender to SPA Infosuv and PKF.
PKF was the financial analysis experts while SPA were the procurement experts.
In its Value for Money Assessment report, the consortium says that they were to capture all costs related to the project although there was likely to be additional costs to be incurred due to certain events of risks that will transpire over the life of MES.
On maintenance assumption, SPA Infosuv and PKF state in their report that: “It is assumed that with the outright purchase the government will spend on approximately 10 per cent of the base cost of the equipment on maintenance.”
However, Ogachi said that the role of SPA in the consortium was to design project risk assessment tool, value for money assessment and financial assessment model.
“We did not attend negotiation meetings for contract variations and we did not access the bids,” Ogachi said.
(edited by O. Owino)