Officers warned of Sh4m fine, surcharge for skipping E-GPS in procurement
PPRA Director-General Patrick Wanjuki said officers responsible for such transactions are breaching the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, 2015, and warned they will be personally liable for the amounts paid through those deals. “
Public officers who bypass the government’s new electronic procurement system risk heavy fines and personal surcharges for payments they authorise outside the platform, the procurement watchdog has warned.
The Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) says some officers have continued to procure goods and services off the system, even backdating transactions to evade its use, despite a legal requirement for all public procurement to be conducted through the Electronic Government Procurement System (E-GPS) from July 1, 2025.
In a circular dated August 12, 2025, addressed to national and county government entities, PPRA revealed that some procuring entities have defied the directive by authorising purchases under the old manual process.
Others have been altering dates on procurement documents to make them appear as if they were initiated before the system became mandatory.
“It has, however, come to the attention of the authority that some procuring entities have continued to procure goods and services outside the E-GP platform while others have resorted to retroacting current procurement of goods and services by backdating procurement proceedings to pre-June 30, 2025,” the circular reads.
PPRA Director-General Patrick Wanjuki said officers responsible for such transactions are breaching the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, 2015, and warned they will be personally liable for the amounts paid through those deals.
“That, effective July 1, 2025, all public procurement and asset disposal transactions should be conducted through the E-GPS; any procurements done outside the system and paid for shall be surcharged on the officer who authorized the transaction,” Wanjuki stated.
Officers found in breach risk a fine of up to Sh4 million in addition to paying back the funds in question.
The E-GPS, launched on July 1, 2025, was introduced to handle all public procurement transactions for both national and county government entities in a bid to increase transparency and curb corruption.
PPRA further directed public bodies to stop publishing new tenders on the Public Procurement Information Portal (PPIP) and instead process all tenders through the E-GPS platform.
