Foreign contractors will be barred from bidding government tenders whose values are less than Sh5 billion in the latest attempts by the National Construction Authority (NCA) to increase the participation of local firms in multi-billion-shillings State contracts. The authority is preparing regulations in partnership with the Public Procurement Oversight Authority (PPOA) to raise the minimum limit for foreign contractors from Sh750 million for road projects and Sh500 million for housing. The shift is expected to hit Chinese firms the hardest at a time when the Lands secretary Charity Ngilu has published regulations that will require foreign contractors to reserve 30 per cent of their work or stake to local firms. NCA board chairman Steve Oundo said that the changes are meant to protect local jobs and curb repatriation of profits by the foreign companies that are increasingly snapping construction works. “What has limited us to Sh1 billion is the PPOA regulations which set the minimum value for works. We are trying to petition them to raise this amount to Sh5 billion,” he said. “We shouldn’t be having taxpayers’ money repatriated to other countries when it could be retained in the country. We therefore have to raise capacity from within.” The authority is also seeking to raise the registration fees for foreign contractors from the current $3,000 (Sh261,000) to Sh870, 000.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 08:37:50 +0000