The Embassy launched an open procurement to select a company to support the Development Team in implementing core support programme for CSOs in Moldova. The tenders must be submitted to the Embassy by COB Monday, 18 February 2019. According to the procurement document published on ted.europa.eu (ref number 2019/S 013-026561), all questions addressed by potential tenderers are to be answered on the Embassy’s web page.
Question: Can a U.S. for-profit company bid on this procurement as a prime implementer? Or, are only EU-based firms permitted to bid?
Answer: Yes. All firms can bid, both inside and outside of the EU.
Question: If U.S. firms are indeed eligible to bid, can we include local partners on our bid as subcontractors?
Answer: Yes. Local firms can be used as subcontractors.
Question: Are the companies listed in the ToR that previously did some of this work (Swedish Development Advisors and Nordic Consulting Group) eligible to bid? If so, is this assignment a follow-on to their work that will be awarded to one of them? Or, is SIDA looking for new partners for this assignment?
Answer: The companies mentioned can bid, but this is a new procurement so all tenderers will be treated equally.
Question: Shall a subcontractor complete Appendix 4 "Grounds for Exclusion" in addition to the special declaration on the European Commission's website? Or is either sufficient?
Answer: The subcontractor shall fill in all requirements in the section "Grounds for exclusion" in the Appendix 4 "Self Declaration by tender" or the declaration on the European Commission's website. Please note that should the tenderer (subcontractor) choose to complete or reuse the ESPD document stored on the European Commission's website, the tenderer(subcontractor) is obliged to ensure that all requirements in Appendix 4 "Self Declaration by tenderers" are verified in the ESPD document.
Question: The Section 4.5 Work plan and timeline appears to be in contradiction with the Section 4.8 Reporting and documentation where six month work plans are to be drawn up based on demand from CSOs. Is there more information from the Embassy in order to be able to elaborate a work plan and allocate time of team members? E.g. number of systems based audits to be carried out, number of trainings/coaching etc. ?
Answer: The Section 4.5 Work plan and timeline refers to the documents that are to be presented as part of the tender proposal by the tenderer – this is the Working Plan of the project. Based on this criteria the proposal will be evaluated. The Section 4.8 Reporting and documentation refers to the operational Working Plans that will drafted for each 6 months and will reflect in details the activities to be conducted depending on the partners' needs. These short term Working Plans will be based on the Project's Working Plan. Within the assignment at least 10 new system based audits will be conducted (this will be decided by the Embassy based on the CSOs development assessment in Moldova). The number of trainings and workshops should be proposed by the tenderer based on the ToR.
