Court suspends State's directive on mandatory use of e-procurement
In orders issued by Justice Bahati Mwamuye at the Milimani Law Courts, the court suspended Treasury Circular No. 104/2025, which had made onboarding to the e-GP platform compulsory for all public entities.
The High Court in Nairobi has stopped the government from enforcing a directive that required all state agencies and county governments to exclusively use the new Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) system.
In orders issued by Justice Bahati Mwamuye at the Milimani Law Courts, the court suspended Treasury Circular No. 104/2025, which had made onboarding to the e-GP platform compulsory for all public entities.
"A conservatory order be and is hereby issued staying the decision of the Cabinet Secretary-National Treasury & Economic Planning AND the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority's Circular No E04/2025, which required the mandatory use of the Electronic Government Procurement System [e-GPS] by all Public Procurement Entities," reads a section of the order.
The judge also granted conservatory orders allowing both manual and electronic submission of tender documents, provided they meet the requirements of Section 77 of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act.
The orders will remain in force until October 15, 2025, unless extended, when the matter will be mentioned virtually for further directions.
The case was filed by Paul Noweywo Kali, International Legal Consultancy Group Limited, and three others against the National Treasury, the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA), and two others.
The orders come in the wake of a dispute between the national and county governments over the rollout of the e-GP system.
In late August, President William Ruto ruled out any reversal of the government’s electronic procurement system, insisting it will remain in place despite growing opposition.
Ruto defended the platform as the most effective tool to eliminate corruption in the acquisition of government goods and services.
“Many people are used to getting corrupt tenders, something worth two shillings, we buy for ten shillings as a government because of corrupt procurement there with quotations and so on and so forth. We have said we are putting this e-procurement in place, so that everybody can know how much an item was bought for and who sold it to the government. And why did the person with two shillings not get that tender, but the person with ten shillings did? That is what we want to do,” the President said.
Governors, however, pushed back against the new system, saying that county leaders are not opposed to digital procurement, but insist the system must be functional and legally sound before full adoption.
In a TV interview on September 2, 2025, Council of Governors Chairperson Ahmed Abdullahi, said governors would welcome e-procurement if it operated smoothly, but the current platform is plagued with glitches that have slowed county operations.
“We have no problem with any system that enhances accountability or automates processes. All we are saying is that it must be aligned with the law. When a system has problems, it shouldn’t be seen as a weakness to say there is a problem and postpone it for a few months or whatever time we need to fix the problem,” Ahmed stated.
