The Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Budget has directed Wajir County and the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) to work alongside each other to resolve delays in uploading procurement records to the Public Procurement Information Portal, following concerns over gaps in documentation compliance and record management.
The directive was issued during a committee session held at Parliament Buildings, where legislators reviewed procurement compliance challenges affecting Wajir County.
Wajir Governor Ahmed Abdullahi told the committee that the county had experienced technical hurdles in uploading its 2022–2023 procurement plan to the Public Procurement Information Portal, but had submitted the documents manually to the regulatory authority via email.
“Our inherited pending bill problem is quite unique among the 47 counties. We actually inherited a situation of incomplete records, where it was not even possible to know what was the actual figure of genuine pending bills. We resorted to actual verification before payment, and we have been addressing these obligations on a first-in, first-out basis,”Governor Abdullahi said.
He added that subsequent procurement records for the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 financial years had been successfully uploaded, with 763 tenders currently published in the system.
The governor further told legislators that the county had adhered to open tendering and request-for-quotation methods and had not recorded any contract variations or tender terminations during the period under review.
He also addressed concerns over pending bills linked to the construction of a health facility, including an X-ray unit at TB Manyata, saying delays were tied to inherited historical debts that the county was working to verify and settle.
The Senate committee observed that the issues raised appeared to stem from administrative and technical challenges related to documentation and record management.
Mandera Senator Ali Roba, who chairs the committee, directed that the manually submitted 2022–2023 procurement records be uploaded to the digital portal to ensure permanent public access and improve transparency.
“It is important for you, actually more than anybody else, because complaints can come after you’ve left the office, to secure those documents and upload them rather than having shared them manually to make sure the system is updated,” Senator Roba said.
“Just have your team upload the documents.”
The committee urged PPRA to strengthen communication channels with county governments to improve coordination and prevent similar delays in procurement reporting.
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