Articles

The Public Procurement Appeals Authority (PPAA) has struck out an appeal that was lodged to it by the M/s Central Square Tech Co. Limited against the Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS) for Tabora, regarding a tender for electrical installation for regional commissioner’s residential house.

According to the facts of the case, the company had been dissatisfied with RAS’ decision of awarding the tender to M/s Monmar and Sons Coompany Limited. The reason for their dissatisfaction was based on the fact that one of the members of the evaluation committee had a business relationship with Monmar and Sons Co. Ltd.

On receiving the notification of the appeal, RAS raised a point of preliminary objection on the ground that Central Square Tech Co. Ltd did not comply with the review procedure as they were required to submit their appeal first to the accounting officer; hence, the appeal was improperly before PPAA. Having gone through submissions by the parties, PPAA rejected the objection on the ground that the company was not required to file their complaint to the accounting officer since the procurement contract had already entered into force. PPAA, equally rejected the company’s responses to the preliminary objection as it was not required to file their complaint neither to the accounting officer nor to PPRA. The preliminary objection was therefore overruled by PPAA.

However, based on the analysis made on the preliminary objection, PPAA considered the following points of law; whether the appeal as filed was within time as stipulated under the law. In addressing this issue, PPAA observed that Central Square Tech Co. Ltd became aware of the tender results on or before 14th November, 2012 when they saw a sign board erected on the site of the works showing Monmar and Sons Co. Ltd as the electrical contractor for the tender under appeal. Thereafter, they filed their complaint to PPRA and subsequently to PPAA on 20th December, 2012. PPAA considered the provisions of Section 82 (2) (a) PPA, 2004 which requires the dissatisfied tenderer to lodge their appeal directly to PPAA within 14 days of becoming aware of the circumstances giving rise to a dispute where the procurement contract has already entered into force.
The Authority observed that counting from 14th November, 2012, the statutory 14 days expired on 01st December, 2012, within which Central Square Tech Co. Ltd was required to lodge their appeal to PPAA. However, the appeal was lodged on 20th December, 2012; twenty days after the statutory fourteen days had elapsed. Therefore, PPAA was satisfied that the appeal was lodged out of time hence, not properly before it. Therefore PPAA ruled out that it had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal.

Based on the above findings, PPAA stroke out the appeal and ordered each party to bear its own costs.