This archive report was first published on 7 August 2020.
On August 7, 2020, a parliamentary team in Kenya raised concerns over two Japanese firms that verify cars, mobile equipment, and spare parts.
The National Assembly's Public Investments Committee (PIC) found that M/s Autoterminal Japan and EAA Company provided forged documents to the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) to win a Sh2.7 billion tender.
According to the inquiry report, Kebs received fake documents from the two Japanese firms during the tender for the procurement of additional firms to undertake pre-export verification of motor vehicles, mobile equipment, and spare parts.
The Kenya Bureau of Standards signed a three-year tender with Quality Inspection Services Japan (QISJ) on April 3, 2018, to inspect used motor vehicles, mobile equipment, and used spare parts in Japan, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Thailand, and South Africa.
However, Kebs has been on the spot over its plan to expand the contract to other players, which has raised concerns about the authenticity of documents provided by the two Japanese firms.
“Overall, Autoterminal Japan (ATJ)…had gross misrepresentation on its technical proposal and should therefore be subjected to proceedings of the law as they contravened section 41(1) (h) of the Public Procurement Disposal Act, 2015 and in such events recommend that it would be appropriate for relevant institutions to initiate debarment proceedings against such bidders,” the report, signed by Abdulswamad Nassir states.
The committee also found that EAA Company attached a lease deed dated May 1, 2014, in the tender documents, which seemed forged as there was no presence of EAA in the United Kingdom at the time.
“Overally, EAA has been knowingly providing falsified documents in the past and present tender submissions and thereby failed to meet the threshold of the tender as they didn’t have any physical and technological infrastructure required to satisfactorily perform services required under this tender in the United Kingdom, Japan, and The United Arabs Emirates,” the report states.
