Consumers Federation of Kenya (COFEK) P.O Box 28053-00200 City Square Nairobi – Kenya Dear Sir RE: KEBS/T056/2014-2015 International Tender for Pre-Export Verification of Conformity (PVOC) to Standards Services Please allow us to express our gratitude for COFEK for the great service offering to the Kenyan consumer As your motto goes COFEK bring confidence to Kenyan consumers. You have indeed achieved that. We are writing to you today on a matter that is causing a lot of concern to us and to many Kenyans on professional discrimination of Kenyan Companies in favor of foreign companies. We beg for your help not just as a company Polucon but as Kenyans experiencing professional discrimination. As you are aware recently the KEBS awarded the Pre-Export Verification of Conformity (PVOC) to Standards Services to 4 foreign firms. You may be aware that Polucon services Kenya Ltd a fully Kenyan ISO 9001:2008 certified company in Cargo inspection and laboratory testing with over 20 years’ experience bid for tender and was disqualified on flimsy reason we ‘did not attach’ the registration certificates for the regions that we had bid for NOT that we did not have them or we did not have the capacity or capability. The truth is we indeed attached registration certificates for our own 6 East African offices and for internationally we attached those of our sub-contracted international network partners which was allowable. The original documents are still held at KEBS. In our opinion we suspect somebody within the tender committee did not bother to peruse and verify the documents which we believe could have been due to prejudice that a local Kenyan company may not certify such requirement. After all the tender by design can only be won by foreign firm. This can be true since so far no local company has ever won or participated in the tender. Polucon is an indigenous Kenyan, ISO 9000:2008 Certified Company which has its own internationally accredited ISO 17025 Accredited laboratories operating in 6 Countries in Africa decided to break this embracing situation where no local firm has ever participated in PVOC tender for the last 20 years! Yet we have the capacity. POLUCON entered in agreement with a well-known international inspection company COTECNA. The agreement would have seen COTECNA acting as an agent/sub-contractor for

Polucon in all places where we did not have physical presence. Please find herewith the letter of intent as attachment. COTECNA is not new to Kenya and has successful offered similar services to Kenya so their capability is proven the only difference is that this time they came as our sub-contractor to build capacity of Kenyan young professionals. In nutshell COTECNA/POLUCON agreement would have seen COTECNA host Kenyan surveyors in their offices abroad and offer training. We would also have also employed more Kenyans locally including those trained at KEBS and currently remain Jobless. COTECNA was ready and willing to offer capacity building to us and to the Kenyan technical personnel to involve them in working abroad to take charge of the KENYA PVOC. We were confidence that KEBS will encourage participation of local companies for this PVOC project but ‘ a simple’ letter written to us by the managing director of KEBS denying us an opportunity our country left us not only in shock but it raised more question than answers to us as local entrepreneurs and professionals. When are Kenyans going to do it for ourselves? Why are we killing our local entrepreneur? Why are we not creating professional jobs for young local professions? Why are we outright discriminating local firms in favor of foreign companies? Albeit by design? Why are we not creating capacity? As you are aware PVOC Verifies what can be imported in Kenya and it has literally been a preserve of foreign companies such as SGS, ITS Bureau VERITAS etc. Although we have no issues with these firms in terms of capacity, capability or the fact they are helping the Kenyans. Our concern is, when is Kenya going to do it for itself. Kenyans must be encouraged and supported to take these opportunities. 50 years on of independent we have continued to use foreign companies which indicates that we are either not encouraging capacity building or we are outright incapable. Polucon has spent substantial amount of money for this PVOC project mainly in building a package that will make it possible for Kenyans to do it themselves. This includes raising a USD 200,000 bid bond which we believe is designed to eliminate many Kenyan firm. We do not feel disappointed that we experience monetary losses but we feel the pain that as Kenyans we were discriminated by our fellow Kenyans. My dear African we must stand up and get counted we must show and demonstrate we can at least offer services to our self and encourage and promote our local professional, giving priority and building capacity. It very painful to note that we are denying many young professionals employment opportunities by discriminating local firms. All over the world today governments are encouraging local firms to offer services that are being offered by foreign companies why is Kenya discouraging it through discrimination.

We are still confident that through your lobbying we can create an opportunity for local companies to serve KEBS especially on international assignment especially on PVOC that is critical to our industries. So far we have raised this discriminatory matter with PUBLIC PROCUREMENT ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW BOARD but as you are aware discriminatory matter of this nature are not covered in the procurement rules. We entirely depend your voice to lobby for us and hope that we can be given an opportunity to be of service to Kenya. We are ready to serve Kenyans as patriots. Thank you and Best wishes Dominic Mureithi Mathenge Managing Director Polucon Services Kenya Ltd P.O. Box 99344 - 80107 Nyati Rd off Links Road Mombasa - Kenya Tel: 254 (41) 4470777/3/4 , 2003672 Cell Phone: 254 722 410312 Email: polucon@polucon.com dmureithi@polucon.com www.polucon.com

Consumers Federation of Kenya (COFEK) P.O Box 28053-00200 City Square Nairobi – Kenya Dear Sir RE: KEBS/T056/2014-2015 International Tender for Pre-Export Verification of Conformity (PVOC) to Standards Services Please allow us to express our gratitude for COFEK for the great service offering to the Kenyan consumer As your motto goes COFEK bring confidence to Kenyan consumers. You have indeed achieved that. We are writing to you today on a matter that is causing a lot of concern to us and to many Kenyans on professional discrimination of Kenyan Companies in favor of foreign companies. We beg for your help not just as a company Polucon but as Kenyans experiencing professional discrimination. As you are aware recently the KEBS awarded the Pre-Export Verification of Conformity (PVOC) to Standards Services to 4 foreign firms. You may be aware that Polucon services Kenya Ltd a fully Kenyan ISO 9001:2008 certified company in Cargo inspection and laboratory testing with over 20 years’ experience bid for tender and was disqualified on flimsy reason we ‘did not attach’ the registration certificates for the regions that we had bid for NOT that we did not have them or we did not have the capacity or capability. The truth is we indeed attached registration certificates for our own 6 East African offices and for internationally we attached those of our sub-contracted international network partners which was allowable. The original documents are still held at KEBS. In our opinion we suspect somebody within the tender committee did not bother to peruse and verify the documents which we believe could have been due to prejudice that a local Kenyan company may not certify such requirement. After all the tender by design can only be won by foreign firm. This can be true since so far no local company has ever won or participated in the tender. Polucon is an indigenous Kenyan, ISO 9000:2008 Certified Company which has its own internationally accredited ISO 17025 Accredited laboratories operating in 6 Countries in Africa decided to break this embracing situation where no local firm has ever participated in PVOC tender for the last 20 years! Yet we have the capacity. POLUCON entered in agreement with a well-known international inspection company COTECNA. The agreement would have seen COTECNA acting as an agent/sub-contractor for

Polucon in all places where we did not have physical presence. Please find herewith the letter of intent as attachment. COTECNA is not new to Kenya and has successful offered similar services to Kenya so their capability is proven the only difference is that this time they came as our sub-contractor to build capacity of Kenyan young professionals. In nutshell COTECNA/POLUCON agreement would have seen COTECNA host Kenyan surveyors in their offices abroad and offer training. We would also have also employed more Kenyans locally including those trained at KEBS and currently remain Jobless. COTECNA was ready and willing to offer capacity building to us and to the Kenyan technical personnel to involve them in working abroad to take charge of the KENYA PVOC. We were confidence that KEBS will encourage participation of local companies for this PVOC project but ‘ a simple’ letter written to us by the managing director of KEBS denying us an opportunity our country left us not only in shock but it raised more question than answers to us as local entrepreneurs and professionals. When are Kenyans going to do it for ourselves? Why are we killing our local entrepreneur? Why are we not creating professional jobs for young local professions? Why are we outright discriminating local firms in favor of foreign companies? Albeit by design? Why are we not creating capacity? As you are aware PVOC Verifies what can be imported in Kenya and it has literally been a preserve of foreign companies such as SGS, ITS Bureau VERITAS etc. Although we have no issues with these firms in terms of capacity, capability or the fact they are helping the Kenyans. Our concern is, when is Kenya going to do it for itself. Kenyans must be encouraged and supported to take these opportunities. 50 years on of independent we have continued to use foreign companies which indicates that we are either not encouraging capacity building or we are outright incapable. Polucon has spent substantial amount of money for this PVOC project mainly in building a package that will make it possible for Kenyans to do it themselves. This includes raising a USD 200,000 bid bond which we believe is designed to eliminate many Kenyan firm. We do not feel disappointed that we experience monetary losses but we feel the pain that as Kenyans we were discriminated by our fellow Kenyans. My dear African we must stand up and get counted we must show and demonstrate we can at least offer services to our self and encourage and promote our local professional, giving priority and building capacity. It very painful to note that we are denying many young professionals employment opportunities by discriminating local firms. All over the world today governments are encouraging local firms to offer services that are being offered by foreign companies why is Kenya discouraging it through discrimination.

We are still confident that through your lobbying we can create an opportunity for local companies to serve KEBS especially on international assignment especially on PVOC that is critical to our industries. So far we have raised this discriminatory matter with PUBLIC PROCUREMENT ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW BOARD but as you are aware discriminatory matter of this nature are not covered in the procurement rules. We entirely depend your voice to lobby for us and hope that we can be given an opportunity to be of service to Kenya. We are ready to serve Kenyans as patriots. Thank you and Best wishes Dominic Mureithi Mathenge Managing Director Polucon Services Kenya Ltd P.O. Box 99344 - 80107 Nyati Rd off Links Road Mombasa - Kenya Tel: 254 (41) 4470777/3/4 , 2003672 Cell Phone: 254 722 410312 Email: polucon@polucon.com dmureithi@polucon.com www.polucon.com