Green Light for CBK to Print Kenya’s New Currency

The Central Bank of Kenya has welcomed the Court of Appeal’s judgement as regards to the KSh10 billion tender awarded to De La Rue International to print new generation bank notes.
“The judgement of the Court of Appeal clears the way for CBK to proceed with the processes it had put in place for printing and supply of new generation bank notes. This legal challenge was the final hurdle that was stopping CBK from issuing the new generation bank notes. CBK will now reassess the timeline for the issuance of these bank notes, and will proceed with all due haste,” said the regulator in a statement on Friday.
In the ruling, the three Judge bench comprised of Judges Erastus Githinji, Asike Makhandia and Sankale ole Kantai ruled that the High Court George Odunga’s order for the re-advertisement of the tender was unfair.
“By considering the expunged tender documents, the judge misdirected himself, resulting in the unfair determination of the tender award in his judgment. Upon the documents being expunged, the petition, in our view, had no legs left to stand on,” they said y in a verdict read by Justice Otieno Odek.
In November 2017, the central bank had announced the issuance of the new generation currency by the end of the second quarter of 2018.
This was after High Court Judge Chacha Mwita declined to stop the tendering process in a case which De La Rue and De La Rue Kenya EPZ Ltd had challenged the regulator’s decision to invite tenders from foreign firms to print the new design Kenyan currency.
The Constitution had given the Central Bank a five-year period to replace the old currency with the new ones.
However, January 2018, the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB) cancelled the contract awarded to De La Rue International Limited directing the CBK to re-evaluate the four bidders who participated in the process among them German Giesecke & Devrient, Crane Currency and Oberthur Fiduciaire of France.
A Swedish company, Crane AB, which offered the lowest bid protested the award and accused CBK of flouting the law and lacking transparency.
However, CBK says “The preference margin of 15 percent was properly applied by CBK in the evaluation of the bid that was placed by De La Rue International Limited. In addition, the application for preferential treatment and subcontracting was properly made by the successful bidder and there was no bar to sub-contracting.”