A procurement dispute surrounding Uganda Revenue Authority’s multi-billion-shilling contract for the support and maintenance of its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system has collapsed after the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Appeals Tribunal struck out a challenge by ADK Technologies Limited.
The Tribunal ruled that ADK had lost its legal standing to challenge the procurement after allowing its bid to expire, effectively shutting the door on the company’s attempt to contest a tender in which Trinamix Inc. and NOC Links Limited emerged as the Best Evaluated Bidder with a contract price of Shs23.25 billion, inclusive of VAT, for three years.
The decision, delivered on August 21, 2026, brings to an abrupt end a procurement dispute that had raised questions over the evaluation of bids, clarification of tender documents and the handling of bid validity periods.
ADK bid rejected over two trainees
ADK’s challenge arose after URA disqualified the company at the detailed technical evaluation stage for Lot Two.
The sticking point was seemingly small but ultimately fatal: ADK proposed instructor-led technical training for 10 participants instead of the 12 participants expressly required in the tender documents.
ADK argued that the reference to 10 participants was merely a typographical error and that its actual training package catered for all 12 trainees.
The company also accused URA of unfairly applying the procurement rules, arguing that other bidders had been allowed to provide clarifications and additional documentation. It further contended that it should at least have been evaluated for Lot One because no separate reason for its rejection from that lot had been recorded.
But URA rejected the challenge, maintaining that the bid had expired on June 30, 2026, meaning ADK was no longer a bidder when it filed its administrative review complaint on July 15.
Tribunal delivers a knockout blow
The Tribunal did not even reach the substantive allegations against URA.
Instead, it determined that ADK’s expired bid deprived the company of the legal standing required to challenge the procurement.
The tender documents required all bids to remain valid until June 30, 2026. The Tribunal found that ADK had expressly undertaken to keep its bid valid until that date but had not extended its validity before expiry.
The Tribunal acknowledged that URA had failed to complete the procurement process before the deadline and had also failed to ask bidders to extend their bid validity.
However, that failure did not automatically keep ADK’s bid alive.
The Tribunal said URA was obliged either to complete the procurement before the deadline or request bidders to extend their bids. But because URA did neither, ADK could not simply assume that its bid remained valid.
Crucially, the regulations also gave ADK the option to voluntarily extend its bid validity where the procuring entity had not requested an extension.
It did not.
“From 1st July 2026,” the Tribunal found, ADK “did not have a valid bid capable of sustaining its continued participation” in the procurement.
ADK challenged URA 15 days too late
The timeline proved devastating for ADK.
Its bid expired on June 30. The company filed its administrative review complaint on July 15, 15 days after the expiry.
When the Accounting Officer rejected the complaint on July 24, ADK was expressly informed that there was no record of an extension of its bid validity.
The company nevertheless proceeded to the Appeals Tribunal on August 6 — 37 days after its bid had expired.
The Tribunal concluded that the company had ceased to be a bidder from July 1 and therefore could not invoke the Tribunal’s jurisdiction.
It ruled that the application was incompetent and struck it out.
Shs23.25 billion contract survives challenge
The ruling leaves intact URA’s July 10 declaration of Trinamix Inc. & NOC Links Limited (JV) as the Best Evaluated Bidder.
The joint venture was selected for the three-year ERP support and maintenance contract at Shs23,250,519,415.21, VAT inclusive.
The procurement covered two major components.
Lot One involved annual maintenance and technical support for URA’s ERP system, including EBS, OMS, SOA and Hyperion, as well as annual licence support for associated software across both primary and disaster-recovery environments.
Lot Two covered technical training and high-level executive engagements for URA staff.
Tribunal never ruled on ADK’s wider allegations
The decision is significant for another reason: the Tribunal did not determine whether ADK’s substantive complaints against the procurement process were correct or wrong.
Once it found that ADK lacked locus standi, it said there was no need to examine the remaining issues.
That means the Tribunal did not make a substantive determination on ADK’s allegations concerning the hard-copy submission by the successful bidder, the alleged selective clarification process or whether URA properly evaluated ADK under the two separate lots.
URA had argued that the successful bidder’s electronic submission was valid because the tender expressly permitted electronic bids. It further maintained that asking the bidder to submit corresponding hard copies did not amount to changing or amending its bid.
URA also defended ADK’s disqualification, saying the requirement for 12 trainees was explicit and that ADK had repeatedly stated “10” in its bid, including in the quantity column and corresponding price.
The Tribunal therefore never had to decide those competing arguments.
Suspension order lifted
With the application struck out, the Tribunal also vacated its suspension order of August 3, 2026, removing the temporary restraint associated with the procurement dispute.
Importantly, however, the Tribunal ordered each party to bear its own costs.
The ruling, signed by Tribunal Chairperson Francis Gimara, S.C., and six members, was dated August 21, 2026.
The case serves as a sharp warning to companies participating in Uganda’s public procurement system: a bidder can lose its ability to challenge a procurement if it allows its bid validity period to lapse without taking the legally available steps to extend it.
For ADK Technologies, the consequence was particularly stark. Its attempt to challenge a Shs23.25 billion procurement was not defeated after a full hearing of its allegations against the evaluation process, but on a preliminary legal issue — the expiration of its own bid.
