Review board orders Judiciary to revive five-year vehicle leasing tender

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The Public Procurement Administrative Review Board has ordered the Judiciary to restart and finish a five-year tender to lease vehicles to the courts. It found that the tender was unlawfully cancelled after the only responsive bidder, Avenue Lease and Rentals East Africa, had been recommended for award.

In Final Decision No. 178 of 2026, dated September 17, the board also quashed a three-year framework tender that the Judiciary had advertised in place of the cancelled one, along with every procurement step taken under it.

Only one bidder made it through

The Judiciary advertised Tender No. JUD/OT/057/2025-2026 for the lease of motor vehicles over five years. It was split into 12 lots and opened on June 23, 2026. Five firms bid: Rentco Africa, Avenue Lease and Rentals, Simba Corporation, Qishlaq Enterprises and Isuzu East Africa.

According to the evaluation report cited in the decision, four bids failed at the preliminary stage. Avenue passed preliminary and technical evaluation in all 12 lots and was found to be the most responsive bidder at financial evaluation. A due diligence report dated July 13 came back satisfactory.

The recommended annual lease prices ranged from KSh2,619,312 for a Toyota Hiace executive microbus to KSh6,614,592 for a Toyota Prado.

Why the Judiciary pulled the tender

On July 29 the Judiciary’s Director of Supply Chain Management Services recommended ending the tender on the ground that all evaluated bids were non-responsive. The Accounting Officer approved the recommendation the next day, and bidders were told in letters dated July 30 that the tender had been terminated “due non-responsiveness of evaluated bids.”

Before the board, the Judiciary said the tender was meant to widen its pool of leasing providers. Avenue and Simba were already supplying vehicles under existing framework contracts, it said. Avenue’s contract runs from January 29, 2024 to January 28, 2027, and 192 vehicles had been leased under it, with some due to stay on lease until 2029. The Judiciary accepted that the tender document did not list this aim as a ground for disqualifying a bidder. Failing that, it asked for a fresh tender that spelt the aim out.

What the board found

The board said the professional opinion had itself found that the evaluation criteria were applied, that Avenue’s prices were reasonable, and that the leasing programme was budgeted for in the 2026/27 procurement plan. It was only in the final recommendation that Avenue’s existing contract was raised.

“A Procuring Entity cannot, after completion of the evaluation process, introduce a new consideration and rely on it to retrospectively alter a finding of responsiveness,” the board said. It added that “the procurement record does not support the assertion in the Professional Opinion that all evaluated tenders were non-responsive.”

The Judiciary had also not produced the termination report the law requires it to send to the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority within 14 days, and the board found none on the Public Procurement Information Portal. The termination letter only repeated the legal ground without explaining why a bidder recommended for award was now non-responsive.

Because the termination did not meet Section 63 of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, the board rejected the Judiciary’s claim that it had no jurisdiction.

The replacement tender, No. JUD/OT/002/2026-2027, was advertised on the Judiciary’s tenders page with a clause restricting existing service providers. The board said the two processes could not lawfully run side by side. Because it set the second tender aside on that basis, it did not rule on whether the exclusion clause was lawful.

The Accounting Officer was directed to resume the five-year tender from the stage just before the termination and conclude it, including making an award, within 21 days of the decision. Each side was to bear its own costs. It was not clear on Monday whether an award had been made by the deadline, which fell on October 8.

The ruling comes as the Treasury presses State agencies to report on idle assets, including vehicles, by December 31. It also follows a court’s order for the release of contract details in the JKIA upgrade case.