Angela Kamanzi My Journey in Entrepreneurship
“How come my company was prequalified by five government parastatals but we never got a quote?” asked Irene Mumo, CEO of Trueways during a KEPSA breakfast meeting with government parastatals on ‘Preferential Government Procurement Quota’ reserved for women that took place on 8 December 2015 in Nairobi.
The event was graced by Cabinet Secretary Nominee, Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs, Ms. Sicily Kariuki. During her keynote speech, Ms. Kariuki said that since the amendment of the procurement rules to allow 30 per cent of contracts to be given to the youth, women and persons with disabilities, Sh25 billion worth of tenders have been allocated to this group. Women entrepreneurs have received 55.96% of the total amount awarded while the youth and persons with disabilities got 42.48% and 1.55% respectively.
She also remarked that challenges such as limited level of awareness, limited level of knowledge on Government tenders, capacity limitation of government officers and unwillingness to embrace changes have dogged the uptake. To address these issues, the ministry has taken some measures including sensitising the government officers involved, making the services available at Huduma Centres and conducting a countrywide sensitisation campaign on AGPO (Access to Government Procurement Opportunities).
Ms. Sicily Kariuki remarked that there’s still a perception about how difficult it is to get through the Government processes. Women have low confidence in themselves and what they can achieve, and there’s limited knowledge cutting across. “Women you are not limited to the 30%. It should be the minimum. You can get to 70% if you want to,’’ she said, stating that in the Ministry of Agriculture where she served before as the PS, 70% of the farmers she dealt with were women.
During the round table debates, Mr. Kinoti Muriuki from the Gender Directorate in the Ministry of Devolution and Planning responded to Irene Mumo. He explained that due to the high numbers of pre-qualified companies, in order to give a chance to as many enterprises as possible, a company receives a quote only once. A quote is sent to four companies and only one out of them gets the tender. None of those four companies will receive another quote until all the pre-qualified companies have been served. This answer didn’t satisfy the entrepreneurs, who requested that the list of companies that receive quotes should be published online; just the way the list of pre-qualified ones is.
Mr. Maurice Juma, PPOA (Public Procurement Oversight Authority) Director General, urged women whose companies have pre-qualified to understand the procurement process and the procurement law, and to keep monitoring opportunities that arise. This is consistent with what some successful women tenderpreneurs shared during a training on ‘How to Win Government Tenders’ organised by FEWA from 3rd to 5th June 2015. They said that as much as the list of pre-qualified companies is published on the PPOA website, most government organisations don’t necessarily consult it. Therefore their suggestion was that, as soon as you get your AGPO Certificate, you take a copy to the institution you are interested in. Some of the ministries have pre-qualification registers and they’ll keep yours. Then keep visiting and monitoring. They likened applying for a tender to looking for a job; because the most aggressive job seeker, the one who’s seen most of the time, has higher chances of being hired.
However participants questioned the integrity of this kind of approach and suggested that more transparency be introduced in the system.
Angela Kamanzi
Your Friend in Biashara
