Mombasa County has been put on the spot by a human rights organization over the awarding of a Ksh17 billion waste-to-energy management tender.
The Centre for Litigation Trust (CLT) claimed that Mombasa County issued the multi-billion tender without the approval of the County Assembly.
The organisation alleged that the Abdullswamad Nassir-led county had awarded the lucrative tender to a Ghanaian conglomerate in secret, without public participation.
CLT requested that the county provide information on how the contract for the design, construction, financing, operation and transfer of the waste-to-energy processing plant was awarded.
The organisation gave the county a 7-day ultimatum to compile a shortlist of applicants for the tender and provide the total number of applicants. It also demanded that the county reveal the dates on which public participation was conducted.
"We seek to know whether the tender is a public-private partnership or a normal tender and if the PPP was tabled before the County Assembly for deliberation," CLT demanded in a letter to the county.
The tender awarded to Ghanian conglomerate, according to CLT, included building, designing, financing, maintaining, operating and transferring of a waste-to-energy processing plant in Mwakirunge.
“The foregoing notwithstanding, public participation as mandated by the law has never been undertaken, nor has the said tender ever been tabled before the County Assembly of Mombasa for deliberations as required by law,” he noted.
The organisation also wanted the evaluation criteria and score sheets for each tenderer and successful bidder to be made public. CLT also demanded that the amount quoted for the tender, along with the completion dates and quoted amounts, be submitted.
The deal followed a visit to Ghana in early August by a Mombasa delegation led by Nassir.
The deal also generated interest in the Mombasa County Assembly, with some members seeking clarity on the process.
Bamburi MCA Patrick Mwavule maintained that the assembly had not been involved in awarding the tender and that it had not been approved by the assembly.
“There was a letter that was written citing that there was an approval from the assembly. I sit in the assembly and have never been part of such a conversation. Confirm to us, has there been any kind of conversation of that nature regarding the services that were to be rendered to the people of Mombasa?” Mwavule questioned.
