President William Ruto has announced sweeping changes to the procurement of Kenya’s Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG).
Speaking during the commissioning of the Liquefied Petroleum Gas Programme for public institutions at Jamhuri High School in Nairobi on Monday, December 16, the President announced that the government will use the open tender system for procurement of its gas products.
According to the Head of State, the decision to move to the Open Tender System(OTS), will enable consumers of gas products to access them at cheaper prices.
Ruto revealed that the directive is part of the ongoing government efforts to reduce carbon impacts from the use of fossil fuels.
A photo collage of President William Ruto speaking on March 20, 2023 (left) and a collection of LPG gas on sale(right).
PCS
EPRA
”Going into the future, we will transition the purchase of gas in Kenya to an open tender mechanism(OTS),” Ruto announced.
”We will have an OTS that is going to support the purchase of gas competitively so that we can get competitive prices and we can leverage on the scale that we have as a country,” he added.
Consequently, the President has announced that the government will work closely with the private sector to establish a common user import facility.
The above announcement means that more private sector players who would want to engage in the importation of gas products will not have to worry about the headache of storage facilities.
”The government is partnering with the private sector to establish a common user import facility at Kenya Petroleum Refinery Limited,” Ruto added.
According to Ruto, the directive will now mean that the LPG sector procurement will run the same as the petroleum products tendering system.
Initially, the OTS was only used for the importation of petroleum products such as diesel, petrol and kerosene.
Since ascending into office, Ruto has been keen on reversing key procurement strategies used by previous governments.
In April 2023, Ruto announced that the government had entered a government-to-government petroleum import deal with Saudi Arabia, amid protests from key industrial stakeholders and economists.
President William Ruto during at Jamhuri High School, Nairobi,during commissioning of the Liquefied Petroleum Gas Programme for public learning institutions on December 16, 2024.
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