Dianah was introduced to government tenders by a relative. She was told that she would make so much money that she would never desire to be employed again. Back then, she worked as a credit officer at a Nairobi-based microfinance.

She did not get the government tenders immediately. “I tarmacked for a year. I knocked on doors and visited endless government’s public procurement offices applying for jobs.” In March 2016, she finally got her first tender. “It was a Sh. 250,000 contract to supply office seats,” she says.

“I delivered on time and got paid promptly. I was sure that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was now my own boss.” Little did she know that barely a year down the line, she would be staring at poverty and depression.

The rain started beating Dianah in January 2018 when she got a Sh. 30 million tender to supply tyres and rims for a parastatal.

She pooled all her savings, and took an LPO facility, a loan from her Sacco using her shares, and a bank loan using a title deed for a plot she had acquired in Ruiru.

“Things turned for the worse once I delivered,” says Dianah. Payment was delayed for over a year and jobs suddenly dried up.

The Sacco and her bank started breathing down her neck. On the night of June 3, 2019, Dianah reached out to an officer who worked at a State agency in search of jobs.

“I was broke, but I figured that if I got a job, I could use the LPO to get some money,” she says. “I asked if he could refer me to any prospects where I could try for work.

His response on the morning of June 4 shattered me. ‘Just find something else to do. Jobs were shared a long time ago!’ He said this without an iota of sympathy,” she says.

“I had three months in rent arrears, half of my kids’ school fees were unpaid, lenders were threatening to auction me off; I didn’t even know what we were going to eat that evening.” She sank her face on her pillow and wailed uncontrollably.

Dianah has since gone back to employment. She has vowed to never do business with the government again.

“I wanted to get rich and ended up starting my life from scratch. I have never been paid and have sued to get my money and interest,” she says.

Many women like Dianah often find themselves gasping for life in the jaws of public procurement.

In some cases, women are forced to sleep with procurement operatives to have their tenders paid.

After spending Sh. 30,000 to get a certificate of incorporation, the AGPO certificate, and a clearance certificate from KRA, and Sh. 60,000 to get her company prequalified at two different county governments, Dorothy Cherotich was forced to sleep with a procurement officer to get her delivery approved and paid.

“I won a Sh. 800,000 tender to supply computer accessories to a county government. After delivering, I got a call from an officer who said my items were faulty,” says the 36-year-old.

“I was asked to fetch them from the county warehouse.” She tried to plead with the officer in vain. “He kept ignoring me until I sensually asked what he wanted.”

He asked for sex. “I had spent Sh. 500,000 on the accessories. I was staring at a possible loss of more than Sh. 200,000 if I purchased the items afresh. Where would I even sell what I had already bought? I agreed to have sex with him.”

Three days later, her delivery was approved and payment processed. “I got my money in less than a week,” she says.

Public procurement is largely a dirty and muddy world where women are dragged through mud, extorted, sexualized, and degraded.

When a man gets a public tender, the most he can give is bribes. For a woman, sex is often attached to the deal.

These sexual favours are hardly demanded by the top officials in a national or county department.

“About 90 per cent of departmental directors or chief officers will not ask for sexual favours. It is too risky for them. The junior procurement officers who prequalify, approve deliveries, and forward paperwork for payment processing are the most notorious with sexual demands,” says Regina Mukami, a procurement consultant based in Nairobi.

Women who have the spine to say no to bribery and sexual overtures are easily run out of business, leaving only the very strong and legally self-aware to battle procurement bullies.

Take Grace Marangu. She stopped applying for state and county tenders after realizing that she was making more money for middlemen than herself.

“I would break sweat to get a tender only to end up spending over half of the gross profit paying off procurement middlemen to get my pay processed,” she says.

In her last tender in April 2020, Grace says that her pay was delayed for six months. When it was processed, she had to dig back into her pocket to settle tax arrears because she had paid out middlemen from her gross profit.

“When you get a tender, you are told that a certain amount will go to the departmental director, another percentage to procurement middlemen. By the time you are done, your net profit doesn’t measure up to the sacrifices you’ve made. You can only survive if you’re well connected,” she says.

Once you get a tender, middlemen easily turn you into their cash cow or sex object. Ms. Marangu recalls how a departmental officer would call her at the dead of the night asking for money.

“I became his sponsor. I’d even get calls from bartenders asking me to settle his bills,” she says. Ms. Marangu says that many of those who refuse to pay up face the music. Lillian Mwanzia who is a former banker, is one of these.

“I had won a tender to supply office furniture worth Sh. 1 million to a county government. As I pushed for my pay after delivering the supply, I was told that I would part with 20 per cent. I said no. My file disappeared for months,” she says.

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To make matters worse, she had taken a bank loan to fund her supply. “I was left in a fix. The bank threatened to auction me off. My case was rescued by a member of parliament who was a close associate to the county governor.” Ms. Mwanzia says that all along, her file had been hidden in the office ceiling.

Juggling between marriage and tenderpreneurship has also proven to be a hard nut to crack for women. Three months ago, Trizah Waceke, a cereals businesswoman who supplies tenders on the side nearly lost her marriage because of a tender.

“My husband thought I was cheating on him because a certain procurement director kept calling asking to have sex with me and sending sexual text messages at odd hours of the night,” she says.

There are also women who have been pushed out of business after being misled by middlemen to under quote tenders in order to bag deals. Take Millicent Ogada, a 44-year-old Nairobi-based entrepreneur. She got a multi-million tender to install solar street lights at a local county government in early 2020.

“When we were invited to make bids, I said that I would do the job at Sh. 10 million. I was the lowest bidder by Sh. 5 million. I won the tender,” she says.

Half way down the job, Mrs. Ogada realized that she had under quoted. “I realized that Sh. 10 million would only over 80 per cent of the job.”

At the time, she had received Sh. 8 million in upfront payment. “I stopped working on the project.” Over the last eight months, Mrs. Ogada has been negotiating to get an addendum that can compensate her and allow her to complete the tender.

“It has been a struggle because the directors want an additional 20 per cent cut. I will pay off 40 per cent on the total amount I am paid. I will not have made any profit.” She admits that she is regretting applying for this job.

Official statistics show that the number of women winning tenders has been rising. But things on the ground are different. According to Ms. Mukami, getting a tender and getting paid for it are two different things.

Many women-owned companies are used by procurement cartels to access tenders and launder money.

“I have been doing business with a State parastatal even though I don’t have a registered company. I use companies owned by women to access deals. I fund the deliveries and pay the owners a small convenience fee,” says Patrick Munuhe – whose real name we have changed to protect identity.

These arrangements have left women in trouble with the law when cartels sell air to the government. Catherine Mwenda is currently staring at possible prosecution following a tender laundering deal gone bad.

“I was approached by a procurement middleman who said that I would get Sh. 300,000 if I allowed them to deposit Sh. 3 million pay into my account for a tender they had won. It was easy money,” she says.

Unknown to her, the money was not payment for any tender. “The money had been stolen from public coffers,” she says, adding that she is on the verge of depression.

“I have been asked to either refund the total Sh. 3 million that was deposited into my account or face prosecution,” says Catherine who is also a church elder.

Death threats are common in these deals. They ensure the identity of the cartels running the show is not revealed.

Catherine says that she is unable to exonerate herself because she cannot dare to reveal the identity and contact of the middleman who approached.

“Since my case was picked up by the police, I have been getting death threats on phone from mysterious numbers,” she says.

In top State corporations and ministries, women have been losing tenders to foreigners just because they are locals.

Jacinta Muthoni recalls losing a two-year media monitoring tender in unfair circumstances in 2018. “I had met all the requirements for the tender. I had the expertise, the experience and the staff to carry out the task. But I was disqualified for being local and quoting Sh. 40,000 more,” she says.

Not one to take a punch in her chin, Jacinta appealed the decision. “I thought it was unfair to lose when the law said I was to be given preference. But even after filing a complaint, no action was taken,” she says.

A version of this feature was previously published in the Saturday Magazine. The Saturday Magazine is a publication of the Nation Media Group.