A firm linked to OT Morpho, a French firm which was put on the spot during last year's election, has made an application to print and supply Kenya's new currency.
Oberthur Fiducaire will face off with other British firm money companies including Crane AB, De la Rue and Giesecke & Devrient, a German company to win the lucrative tender.
This comes after Procurement Administrative Review Board (PARB) cancelled the Sh10 Billion-a-year tender awarded to De la Rue and ordered a fresh evaluation of bids.
Swedish firm Crane AB filed the petition before the procurement agency accusing the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) of illegally awarding the tender to the British firm.
The PARB termed the process of the award to De la Rue unlawful accusing the board of abusing the 15 percent local preference.
[caption caption="File image of De la Rue currency and security factory"]
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The panel, comprising of Chairman Paul Gicheru and members Hussein Were, Peter Bita Ondieki and Paul Ngotho faulted CBK for giving a 15 percent margin preference for having local shareholding.
It directed the CBK to make a fresh evaluation of all the tenders submitted to it within 14 days.
The French-based company was intertwined in the controversial supply of voter identification gadgets and computer servers for the recent Kenyan polls.
[caption caption="Kenyans voting during the election"]
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It had been contracted by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) for the supply of 45,000 biometric authentication kits for voters and the systems capable of electronically transmitting the electoral results.
