A procurement dispute surrounding Uganda Revenue Authority\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ADK\u2019s challenge arose after URA disqualified the company at the detailed technical evaluation stage for Lot Two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ADK argued that the reference to 10 participants was merely a typographical error and that its actual training package catered for all 12 trainees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Tribunal did not even reach the substantive allegations against URA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, it determined that ADK\u2019s expired bid deprived the company of the legal standing required to challenge the procurement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, that failure did not automatically keep ADK\u2019s bid alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Crucially, the regulations also gave ADK the option to voluntarily extend its bid validity where the procuring entity had not requested an extension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFrom 1st July 2026,\u201d the Tribunal found, ADK \u201cdid not have a valid bid capable of sustaining its continued participation\u201d in the procurement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The timeline proved devastating for ADK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Its bid expired on June 30. The company filed its administrative review complaint on July 15, 15 days after the expiry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company nevertheless proceeded to the Appeals Tribunal on August 6 \u2014 37 days after its bid had expired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Tribunal concluded that the company had ceased to be a bidder from July 1 and therefore could not invoke the Tribunal\u2019s jurisdiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It ruled that the application was incompetent and struck it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ruling leaves intact URA\u2019s July 10 declaration of Trinamix Inc. & NOC Links Limited (JV) as the Best Evaluated Bidder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The joint venture was selected for the three-year ERP support and maintenance contract at Shs23,250,519,415.21, VAT inclusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The procurement covered two major components.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lot One involved annual maintenance and technical support for URA\u2019s ERP system, including EBS, OMS, SOA and Hyperion, as well as annual licence support for associated software across both primary and disaster-recovery environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lot Two covered technical training and high-level executive engagements for URA staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The decision is significant for another reason: the Tribunal did not determine whether ADK\u2019s substantive complaints against the procurement process were correct or wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once it found that ADK lacked locus standi, it said there was no need to examine the remaining issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That means the Tribunal did not make a substantive determination on ADK\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
URA had argued that the successful bidder\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
URA also defended ADK\u2019s disqualification, saying the requirement for 12 trainees was explicit and that ADK had repeatedly stated \u201c10\u201d in its bid, including in the quantity column and corresponding price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Tribunal therefore never had to decide those competing arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Importantly, however, the Tribunal ordered each party to bear its own costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ruling, signed by Tribunal Chairperson Francis Gimara, S.C., and six members, was dated August 21, 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case serves as a sharp warning to companies participating in Uganda\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u2014 the expiration of its own bid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A procurement dispute surrounding Uganda Revenue Authority\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27987,"featured_media":43438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_paywall_metabox":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[356],"tags":[10434,31,119,436],"class_list":["post-43437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-big-story","tag-adk-technologies","tag-featured","tag-uganda-news","tag-ura"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27987"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43439,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43437\/revisions\/43439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}