Kenya’s Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB) has revoked the laptop tender that had been awarded to Indian firm Olive Telecommunications.

The PPARB says that Olive does not have capacity to supply 1.3 million laptops at Ksh 24.5 billion.

This announcement was made on Monday after a review of the tendering process, in which the PPARB found several ‘discrepancies’ in Olive meeting the supply requirements.

PPARB said that Olive was not an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) as per tender requirements.

The review team also found out that Olive did not meet the requirement that bidding companies should have a turnover of Ksh 8 billion or more.

In its ruling, PPARB ordered the Ministry of Education’s tender committee to disqualify Olive, and complete the tender award process this time with only HP and Haier Group as the main bidders.

Olive Telecommunications had offered to supply the primary schools laptop project tender at a price of Ksh 23.1 billion while submitting its final offer in December, only for it to be awarded the tender by the Ministry at Ksh 24.5 billion.

PPARB said that ministry officials had inflated the price by Ksh 1.4 billion, effectively flawing the whole process.

It is not; however, clear if PPARB will be taking any legal action against officials involved.

While receiving the news, HP’s lawyer Kamau Karori, said that the ruling automatically makes HP the lowest bidder at Ksh 25 billion compared to Haier’s Ksh 27 billion bid.