Kenya's High Court Justice Weldon Korir has issued an order to stop the re-evaluation of the tender award to supply 1.3 million primary school laptops pending a hearing of the case on April 10.

This follows Olive Telecom's bid to the high court to appeal the decision made by the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB) to cancel the contract.

Indian company Olive was awarded the tender to supply the laptops to Kenyan primary schools.

The company filed the appeal papers seeking the high court to overrule PPARB’s decision, and reinstate the tender to it, saying that the disqualification decision was malicious.

“The decision is contrary to the rules of natural justice. It is based on grounds which were not pleaded by any of the applicants in the request for review applications that had been filed,” Olive’s director of sales Ajay Jain said in an affidavit filed in court.

Meanwhile, PPARB said in its decision to cancel the tender that Olive did not meet the requirement that the tender applicants have a turnover of more than Kshs8 billion, and that the ministry of education officers had inflated the tender figures by Kshs1.4 billion.

Olive in its defense said that its combined average turnover as a consortium was more than double the Kshs8 billion requirement.

The company also defended its final bid of Kshs24.5 billion from its initial Kshs23.1 billion, saying the extra amount was a service charge for services like warranty, operating system, warehousing and distribution.

In the meantime standard one pupils will have to wait longer before they can finally lay their hands on the much awaited laptops, even as schools near closure of first term.