All Answers for Questions pertaining to the Procurement will be posted on this page
Question 1:
<Potential bidder> is a multidisciplinary consulting and assurance firm having more than 32 years of experience in the field of professional services worldwide. We specialize in providing services to the development sector such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank, African Union Commission, DFID, The Global Fund, Gavi the Vaccine, UN Agencies, International Criminal Court, SAARC Development Fund, various Governments, International Not for Profit Organizations in over 65 countries. We have numerous Long-Term Agreements to provide these services with most of the agencies.
The firm has associates in 67 countries in all geographical regions across the globe and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with them to provide resources and work as an associate firm, or we can also provide the resources and work with them as well. We intend to submit this bid, therefore we request you to confirm whether we can submit the EOI by E-mail or not? As the flights have been canceled or delayed due to CoronaVirus.
Answer 1:
This is to confirm that we have called for tenders, and not for EOIs (expressions of interest); tenders must be submitted as prescribed in the tender documents, however should the situation develop, any resulting change will be published, as is this Q&A, on the website stated in the tender documents.
Question 2:
We seek a clarification regarding the work experience required for a level 3. Page 13 of the Procurement document provided states “Must have at least five years working experience with assignments with relevance for performing assignments in the Auditing Sector”. Whereas page 7 of the Terms of Reference states “Junior Level Consultant (Level 3), with relevant experience of less than 5 years”.
Answer 2:
The correct requirement for all 3 levels is: Level 1 - ≥15 years of relevant experience, Level 2 - ≥5 years to ˂15 years of relevant experience, and Level 3 - ˂5 years of relevant experience, however, please be advised that a minimum of 1 year of relevant experience is required for Level 3 consultants.
Question 3:
We note that the bids have to be delivered to Embassy of Sweden; 24, Lideta Sub-City, Woreda 09, House No. 891, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia no later than Tuesday, 14.04.2020, 3pm. In the current global crisis and amid state wide lockdowns, flights suspended and firms working from home, getting the bids delivered to your offices in Addis Ababa will not be an easy logistical exercise, especially for firms like ourselves which are not based in Ethiopia. The current crisis means that courier firms are not operating as normal. In the circumstances, would you accept electronic submission of the bids? If that is possible please let us know the process for doing that.
Answer 3:
The conditions for submission of tenders remain unchanged. HOWEVER, THE EMBASSY OF SWEDEN HAS DECIDED TO EXTEND THE SUBMISSION DEADLINE TO TUESDAY, 12TH MAY 2020, AT 3PM ADDIS ABABA TIME.
Question 4:
Could you also confirm whether the audit opinions would need to be signed by a locally based auditor?
Answer 4:
The audit report will have to be signed by authorised personnel of the audit/consulting firm, and in principle that would be the respective team leader of each audit (if authorised), or an authorised senior manager of the audit/consulting firm.
Question 5:
We have a question regarding your procurement "Framework Agreement for Audit Services". Will it be possible for us to hand in our bid only by email?
Answer 5:
It is not possible to submit a tender electronically, however, the tender submission date has been extended to 12.05.2020.
Question 6:
We have today received an email regarding the above referred tender notice, and it states:
Tender notice overview
Procurement number : UM2020/02913/ADDI
Public notice: This is a public call for tenders. The final date for submitting tenders is 12/05/2020. Tenders must be valid until 14/10/2020.
However, the procurement document states: Tenders must be delivered to the Embassy of Sweden, Lideta Sub-City, Woreda 09, House No. 891, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia no later than Tuesday, 14.04.2020, 3pm.
The notice on your Embassy website as at today states:Bids must be delivered at or before 14th April 2020 no later than 3:00 pm to Embassy of Sweden, Lideta Sub-City, Woreda 9, House No 891, Addis Abeba.
As you can see, the two dates are a month apart. Has the date for submission been postponed? Clarification of the correct submission date for this tender will be highly appreciated.
Answer 6:
All registered potential tenderers have received a push email advising of the extension of the deadline for tender submission. The correct new dates are: submission deadline: 12.05.2020 at 3pm; last date for questions: 28.04.2020 at 23:59; and required tender validity: 12.11.2020. Please also note that the framework agreement start date will also be pushed back, to 01.07.2020, with an initial 2 year duration until 30.06.2022 and optional up to two extensions of one year each.
Question 7:
We are in the process of preparing a tender for procurement number UM2020/02913/ADDI. We note the Procurement Document requires the submission of the proposals in both physical and digital formats. In response to the Corona pandemic, [prospective tenderer] staff are currently working from home wherever possible in order to minimise the risk of catching or spreading the virus. In order to send physical copies of our tender to you, our staff would be required to travel to a [prospective tenderer] office in order to print and prepare the documentation. Therefore, in the interest of the safety of our staff and the public in general, we would like to ask whether the Embassy would consider accepting a digital-only version of our tender?
Answer 7:
The Embassy has currently no intention to accept tenders via email or other electronic means, and had therefore some time ago extended the submission deadline to 12th May 2020 (@ 3pm). The Embassy is continuously monitoring the situation and will publish updates on the Embassy’s website. All prospective tenderers are therefore encouraged to regularly check the Embassy’s website for this procurement.
Question 8:
The CV template states ‘Maximum five employments and/or assignment should be included’. The Procurement Document p13 states Level 1 Consultants ‘Must have been responsible for and/or carried out at least ten assignments (to be listed in the CV)’. These two requirements are in conflict. Furthermore, the requirement to keep descriptions on the CV to 300 characters makes it difficult to detail multiple assignments under one employment. Would it be acceptable for us to use separate tables on the CV for employments and for assignments? In the assignments table we will include more than five assignments in order to meet the requirements in the Procurement Document.
Answer 8:
The limitations set in the CV template are herewith lifted, and the CV can contain more than 300 characters and shall also reflect the required information to comply with the terms of reference and procurement document when describing staff. However, please keep to the general layout of the CV template.
Question 9:
With regard to the above procurement, we are a UK based international audit firm interested in bidding to provide the services requested. However, we note that Section 1.1 of the Procurement Document states “the competition is open to single tenderers and consortia of firms are not foreseen”. Based on this, could you please clarify whether the Embassy will only accept and evaluate bids from purely Ethiopia based audit firms?
Answer 9:
We request all interested tenderers to carefully read the documents provided – the tender documents clearly do not restrict participation to specific nationalities (country of registration of a tenderer). The condition “the competition is open to single tenderers and consortia of firms are not foreseen” does not exclude any nationality (country of registration of a tenderer) but rather means that all tenders shall be submitted by single tenderers (a single entity, national or international) and not by consortia comprising of several companies; the required local expertise can be provided by foreign tenderers through proof of access to qualified local experts or preferably through a qualified local company as sub-contractor. It is further noted that many of the potentially required audit types described/listed in the terms of reference do require international experience as well.
Question 10:
We note with regard to the Terms of Reference provided that the proposed workload is split into five different audit types (financial audit with assurance, financial audit without assurance, forensic audits, efficiency audits, performance audits). We also note that the ToR states that the overall extent and volume of the services cannot be determined at this point. However, we wonder whether there is any guidance you could give on which of these particular areas are anticipated to comprise a larger portion of the work assigned?
Answer 10:
As stated in the terms of reference, at this point in time no estimates can be given for any of the audit types as those are defined on an as and when required basis.
Question 11:
Whilst we acknowledge that the Embassy has already extended the submission date to allow for the situation arising from the Covid-19 crisis, this still very much an ongoing issue, and Courier services are still not operational In the circumstances, would the Embassy considering further extension to the submission date, or alternatively accept submission via email.
Answer 11:
Kindly consult Kommers Annons and/or the Embassy website; the submission deadline has been extended to 15.09.2020.
Question 12:
The procurement document states that ‘A copy of the tenderer’s company registration certificate, issued by the company registrar in the country of registration; the document may not be older than six months’ is this requirement valid for organisations older than 6 months?
Answer 12:
This requirement refers to the issue of the document itself – all documents for which the ‘not older than 6 months’ requirement is stipulated in the tender documents, may not be older than 6 months, i.e. recent copy (not older than 6 months) must be obtained from the relevant authority/office; with the extension of the submission deadline, any document with this stipulation must have been issued on or after 16.03.2020.
Question 13:
Due to the shortage/irregularity of cargo flights schedules and lack of assurance of delivery timelines from the couriers, could we deliver our hard copy proposal to SIDA Kenya??
Answer 13:
All tenders must be submitted to the address stated in the tender documents; any submission to any other address will not be considered. However, please consult Kommers Annons and/or the Embassy website; the submission deadline has been extended to 15.09.2020.
Question 14:
We note that section 3.4 of the procurement document requires tenderers to submit original documents e.g technical proposal submission form, list of consultants etc. Due to the current irregularity of flights and long lead times of courier deliveries, and the fact that we have some Addis based staff, we propose to send clear colour scanned documents to our Addis based staff to print in colour and submit our hard copy tenders to your offices. Please let us know if this is an acceptable option to your Embassy. Thanks.
Answer 14:
All documents required to be submitted as originals must be submitted as originals; scanned copies are not considered to be originals. However, please consult Kommers Annons and/or the Embassy website; the submission deadline has been extended to 15.09.2020.
Question 15:
We note that one annex, annex (1.6), is provided for the 15 references requested for the organisation as a whole. Could you clarify the format of the two references requested per each consultant? Should we use the same annex for this, as there does not seem to be a section of the CV template dedicated to these references?
Answer 15:
The contact details for 2 assignments per CV can be added at the end of each CV, after date and signature.
Question 16:
We note that the Terms of Reference state “Understanding of and comments on these terms of reference and methodology shall not exceed a combined 20 pages (excluding Appendices …. )”, should we infer from this that the page limit on the Technical Tender document, excluding annexes, is 20 pages?
Answer 16:
The limitation to 20 pages refers to methodology (including understanding of and comments on the terms of reference) only; a limitation also applies to the description of the tender (3 pages); tenderers must ensure to provide all documents requested and required throughout the procurement document and annexes.
Question 17:
With regard to the above procurement, we would like to request clarification on Annex 1.5, Self Declaration by Subcontractors, Final; does this have to be completed for the sub-contracting firm only or is it one for each individual expert nominated by the sub-contractor?
Answer 17:
In this tender, ‘subcontractor’ refers to firms and as per procurement document only 1 subcontractor is permitted (for int’l tenderers that could be a local audit firm, and for a local tenderer it could be an int’l audit firm); if a tenderer elects to use a subcontractor, that subcontractor must fill and sign Annex 1.5.
Question 18:
With regard to your answer to Question 14, submission of original documents, are original documents in the pdf format acceptable.
Answer 18:
The question is not understood. All tenders are required to be submitted as stipulated in the Procurement Document and to the address stated in the Procurement Document, courier services are working fairly normally (potentially with some extended transit period). Original in terms of the paper submission means a document clearly identifiable as original; original in terms of the additionally required softcopy to be submitted means a colour-scanned copy of the original (as submitted in the tender) in PDF format; submitting a tender electronically is not allowed.
Question 19:
This tender process requests original copies of key documents. Please can you clarify your definition of an original copy? Will an electronically signed copy of a document be accepted, or will you only accept hand-signed documents?
Answer 19:
Those documents listed in the Procurement Document or Annexes 4 and 5 as being required as ‘original’ must be hand-signed (inserting a scanned signature will not be accepted).
Question 20:
With reference to Annex 1.6 of this tender, ‘Reference for assignment performed by the tenderer’, we note that the document is locked for editing. We consider that the box ‘Specification of the assignment’ for detailing reference assignments is fairly limited in size, if we are to cover all bullet points requested both in the body of the Annex and within the Procurement Document. Will it be acceptable for tenderers to submit this Annex in the same exact format, but edited to allow for more space in the ‘Specification of the assignment’ box?
Answer 20:
Yes, for Annex 1.6 tenderers may use the exact same format with expanded space for ‘specifications of the assignment’. However, please limit information to relevant information in response to the terms of reference.
