A legal battle has erupted over who qualifies to print the 2027 ballot papers, putting the electoral commission’s procurement rules under judicial scrutiny, with competing demands for proven high-volume security-printing capacity and greater participation by local firms at the centre of the dispute.
A local company, Oilmax Ventures Ltd, has moved to the High Court after the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board rejected its complaint on requirements for experience and financial strength.
Pending determination of the judicial review case, the court has suspended the procurement process, placing the commission in the spotlight over the tight election-readiness deadlines, international security-printing capacity, local-content rules and constitutional requirements for fair and competitive procurement.
The dispute concerns a tender advertised by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on August 11, 2026, for the supply and delivery of ballot papers, tactile folders, the Register of Voters and statutory election result declaration forms for the forthcoming General Election.
The tender required bidders to have completed at least two previous security-ballot printing contracts, including one involving at least 150 million ballot papers within five years.
It also required bidders to have an average annual turnover of Sh6 billion for 2023, 2024 and 2025, plus access to Sh10 billion for supply cash flow in working capital.
Oilmax challenged those requirements, saying they were restrictive, discriminatory and disproportionate.
The Public Procurement Administrative Review Board rejected the complaint on September 3, saying Oilmax had not proved that the requirements were unlawful, discriminatory, disproportionate or anti-competitive.
The board accepted IEBC’s explanation that the 2027 election would require about 168 million ballot papers in aggregate.
It found the 150 million-paper threshold was about 89.3 per cent of that requirement and was connected to the scale of the procurement.
The board acknowledged that the requirements were “demanding” and that “some suppliers” would be unable to satisfy them. It also upheld the Sh6 billion annual turnover requirement and the Sh10 billion cash-flow requirement.
Oilmax was aggrieved by that decision and has now raised a further issue before the High Court concerning a separate 40 per cent local-content requirement in the tender document.
It argues that the requirements are incompatible with a separate mandatory 40 per cent local-content requirement, because the international firms capable of meeting the 150-million-ballot threshold may not be able to meet the local-content requirement, while Kenyan firms capable of meeting the local-content threshold may not have the required ballot-printing history.
The company’s director Mohammed Ali says the tender required at least 40 per cent of the contract to be sourced from, or subcontracted to, local Kenyan manufacturers or citizen contractors.
He argues that the two requirements cannot be met together by a single bidder. In his affidavit, Mr Ali says international suppliers capable of meeting the 150 million-paper experience requirement do not possess the local participation needed to satisfy the 40 per cent condition.
He says no Kenyan manufacturer capable of supplying the local content independently has such a contract and those capable of providing the required local participation may lack a track record of printing 150 million ballot papers under a single contract.
Mr Ali names Al Ghurair Printing & Publishing LLC and Inform Lykos as the international suppliers he says can meet the experience requirement.
“The internal contradiction renders Requirement No.2, read together with the local-content requirement, irrational in that no reasonable procuring entity, properly directing itself to the object of Article 227(1) of the Constitution (a procurement system that is fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective), would prescribe qualification criteria that are, on their face, incapable of simultaneous fulfilment by any single tenderer,” he argues.
Oilmax says the local-content issue was not fully argued before the procurement board, which made no finding on how the two requirements should operate together.
The company has also cited another IEBC procurement dispute decided by a differently constituted board panel on September 3. In that case, involving the Integrated Elections Management System tender, Oilmax says the panel treated the 40 per cent requirement as mandatory for foreign tenderers.
Oilmax wants the court to quash the board’s decision insofar as it upheld the three disputed requirements –similar experience, financial capacity and financial capability.
It also wants orders stopping IEBC from receiving, opening, evaluating or awarding the tender on the basis of those requirements. The company wants IEBC to reformulate the requirements to reconcile them with the local-content condition.
It has also asked the court to declare the experience requirement, read with the local-content condition, incapable of lawful or practical compliance by a single tenderer.
Justice William Musyoka granted leave for the judicial review and ordered a suspension of further steps in the procurement. He directed that the matter be dealt with through written submissions, with a compliance mention on October 7 and judgment on October 16, 2026.
The suspension order followed an earlier PPARB order extending the tender submission and opening deadline by at least seven days from September 3. The procurement board also found a separate inconsistency in the tender document concerning tender security.
One part allowed security from a reputable financial institution or insurance company, or a banker’s cheque, while another mandatory evaluation section referred specifically to a bank guarantee.
