The Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (Kemsa) was on Friday questioned by a parliamentary committee over its decision to directly choose the suppliers of reagents and consumables instead of tendering for the services.
Kemsa CEO Jonah Manjari was forced to explain to the committee how they had arrived at the decision of handpicking the suppliers. The questioning of Manjari was part of the committee's investigation into the Sh63 billion Managed Equipment Services (MES) programme.
Manjari confirmed that indeed KEMSA had given the contract to a company called Angelica Medical Supplies Limited to supply the products. All the 47 counties were therefore forced to obtain the commodities from Angelica through the medical agency.
While defending the decision for direct procurement, Manjari stated that the decision was informed by the fact that the commodities could only be obtained from specific places.
“The reagents and consumables we talking about are machine-specific. The counties could not have procured them from any other place. We contracted Angelica because we were referred to them by manufacturers of the equipment,” Manjari said as quoted by the Standard.
Isolo Senator Fatuma Dullo who is the chairperson of the ad hoc committee demanded an explanation on why each county could not make their own procurement.
A section of the committee members pointed out that KEMSA's decision for direct procurement was suspicious as it was susceptible to corruption.