The Prisons Service is facing a major crisis in food supplies, medicine, uniforms, fuel and other basic facilities following a major tender row.
This has affected services such as transportation of prisoners to certain places, production of number plates and food supplies to the prison.
Kahawa Tungu has learnt that number plate printing, which is done by the prison service has affected more than 20,000 new vehicles, which are lying at National Transport and Safety Authority various office yards.
The row was sparked by principal secretary Zainab Wanjiru, who suspended payments of pending bills, amounting to Ksh6.2 billion.
The PS also cancelled the existing tenders, and stopped the award of new tenders. The tenders that had been awarded earlier were re-advertised, further escalating the crisis at the prison service. This means that the money that was allocated for the supplies may be recalled to the treasury, further crippling the service.
According to sources within the service, the tender row could be involving bigwigs who are fighting for a share of kickbacks associated with such tenders.
The companies that had been awarded tenders are yet to receive official communication of the cancellation of the tenders from the service.
“We believe that they want to award these tenders to some preferred candidates at our expense. We had obtained some of the needed goods at a cost and it will be a loss to us. We will meet in court,” said one of the tenderpreneur as quoted by a local weekly publication.
Currently, the service is getting supplies from the Ministry of Transport, Housing and Infrastructure which is not sufficient.
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