Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO)

Story by Sylvia Njeri.

The legal requirement for women, youth, and persons with disabilities to access 30% of Government Procurement opportunities is being implemented within the context of the Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO) program which was officially launched by H.E President Uhuru Kenyatta on 16th October 2013 in Nairobi County.

The AGPO program is founded on the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 Article 227 on the fair, equitable, transparent, and cost-effective public procurement of goods and services, Article 55 on affirmative action and, the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, 2015.

Aim of the AGPO Program

The aim of the AGPO program is to facilitate the enterprises owned by women, youth, and persons with disabilities to be able to participate in Government opportunities. This is made possible through the implementation of the legal requirement that 30% of Government procurement opportunities be set aside specifically for enterprises owned by these groups. As a result, the program is aimed at empowering them by having more opportunities to do business with Government.

In KenTrade we ensure our procurement opportunities are available to the marginalized groups by keeping up with the list of names shared by the National Treasury on individuals under the category. We have also shared our annual procurement plan on our website for the marginalized groups to be able to have access to the opportunities availed by the agency. Once the groups have this information, they wait to be invited to tender depending on what the agency is procuring at the time. Names of suppliers are picked out randomly, from the list of pre-qualified suppliers under the AGPO program, and they are invited to tender. To top that, KenTrade ensures suppliers under the marginalized groups are paid promptly, 30 days after they have supplied.

We also share information on our pre-qualified suppliers, the tenders issued to them, the evaluators and who won the tenders, on the Government’s Public Procurement Information Portal, which is available to members of the public, for transparency in procurement opportunities. Some of the opportunities that KenTrade has offered to the marginalized groups in Q4 of the FY 2021-2022, are:

1. Ticketing & travel services
2. Provision of advance gateway security suite bundle for sonic wall NSA3600
3. Supply & delivery of noise cancelling wireless headsets
4. Provision of PC preventive maintenance services including basic hardware
5. Provision of enterprise END point Anti-Virus
6. Supply & installation of audio-visual equipment
7. Consultancy services for employee satisfaction & work environment survey
8. Supply & fixing of storage shelves
9. Supply & delivery of various office items
10. Supply & delivery of water and beverages
11. Provision of an application Performance Management Tool
12. Supply & delivery of tyres size 205/60R16
13. Supply & delivery of laptops
14. Supply & delivery of branded store items
15. Door branding and direction signage
16. Supply & delivery of tyres size 195R14C including fittings
17. Provision of maintenance services for air conditioners & fir extinguishers
18. Provision of routine maintenance of water dispensers
19. Provision of cleaning services
20. Supply & delivery of meals & beverages
21. Refabrication and installation of a flexi-made backlit signage at KenTrade ICDN offices.

The agency also ensures we hold annual sensitizations for the marginalized group, to keep them abreast with the agency’s procurement processes and the new systems implemented for their use. We also ensure to always have a sign language interpreter in the sensitizations, for the persons with hearing impairment to not be left behind.