The Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (KETRACO) on Thursday announced the digitization of its procurement processes in a move the parastatal says falls in line with President Uhuru Kenyatta’s directive to make all state contracts public in order to enhance transparency in government.
In a statement, KETRACO said it has digitized its procurement processes via an e-procurement platform powered by SAP Ariba Cloud.
According to KETRACO Managing Director Fernandes Barasa, This second phase of an end-to-end automation of tendering, supplier management and contracts process will see tenders and quotations submitted and processed online for efficiency, accountability and transparency.
“This process is 100% Paperless and KETRACO is the first Company to implement this automation in East and Central Africa region,’ said Barasa.
Further, the company says that Open and Restricted Tenders, Request for Proposals (RFP) and Request for Quotations (RFQ) will be advertised through the government portals, KETRACO websites and in newspapers with nationwide circulation.
“All interested bidders/ suppliers will be required to submit their documentation online. The tenders will then be received, evaluated and awarded online,” added Barasa.
In the first phase of the implementation that went live in April this year, the company automated ‘procure to pay’ operations by onboarding suppliers to the SAP Ariba network to start transacting electronically.
Purchase Requests, Local Purchase Orders (LPOs), invoices and payment of goods/ services will be processed online in the ‘procure to pay’ operation.
Speaking during the go-live event on Thursday, KETRACO’s Managing Director Fernandes Barasa noted that over 260 suppliers have been trained, registered on the Ariba network and continue to transact with KETRACO in a paperless environment and are ready to move the entire tendering process.
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“Supplier registration and qualification has now been made available online. The youth and the special groups will be submitting their registration applications online and will be on-boarded immediately. ‘’ He noted.
This automation has been made possible by SAP Ariba, a provider of collaborative business commerce solutions that allows suppliers to easily extend their back-end systems and processes to benefit from electronic transactions.
Uhuru Directive
In June 2018, President Kenyatta through an executive order ordered full public disclosure of details of Government tenders as a measure to rein in on wanton corruption.
“The Executive Order requires all Government entities and public-owned institutions to publish full details of tenders and awards from July 1, 2018,” said a statement from State House.
KETRACO Scandals
KETRACO has been embroiled in its fair share of scandals under the Jubilee Administration.
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In June 2018, internal auditors unearthed a Ksh6.3 billion scam at the firm that entailed payment of shadowy contractors millions of shillings for work not done.
In February this year, the firm was implicated in a Ksh14.2 billion scam where the company fraudulently compensated landowners at rates grossly above the market value. In one instance flagged by the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) a landowner in Kajiado was paid ten times the market value for his piece of land acquired in order to erect transmission poles.
