The Government of South East African Republic has embarked on a large investment program for the rehabilitation of infrastructure and improvement of basic services to the general public in education, health, transport and e-government. Delays in a number of investment projects are often attributed to inadequate discharge of procurement functions in accordance with requirements of the Public Procurement and Concessions Agency and other international financing institutions. The Ministry of Procurement which is responsible for policy direction and the Public Works Agency (PWA), which shoulders the bulk of responsibility for transacting procurement of various ministries in the Republic are keen on upgrading the competencies of procurement and project implementation staff in order to overcome current shortcomings and improve performance. Similarly, other ministries which engaged in international funded development projects are also keen on strengthening their internal capacity to handle complex procurement operations.

To address the problems of delays in procurement delivery, the Government of the South East African Republic has requested the PWA to undertake an intensive procurement training program with the assistance of a Consultant. The Government has also received indication that a grant from an international financing institution could be made available for the engagement of the Consultant who would provide an initial program of technical assistance to government staff in order to reinforce the procurement capacity in Public Works Agency and eight-line ministries.

The Public Works Agency (PWA) has neither a precise estimate of the number of staff which should be trained nor on the methodology to be used for the identification and selection of staff to be trained. About 120 officials have varying responsibilities and degrees of involvement in the procurement process and their professional expertise profile in procurement varies from well experienced to start-up professionals with little experience. Other requirements considered by the Public Works Agency are the following:

• the training should cover best practice in international public procurement with particular reference to the recently revised procurement guidelines of the Public Procurement and Concessions Agency;
• the program should include basic courses for around 80% of the staff and advanced courses for 20% of the staff;
• each session should not last more than two weeks and there should be no more than 20 participants in each session;
• training material will be prepared by the consultant and thereafter reviewed and approved by Public Procurement and Concessions Agency;
• The Public Works Agency will be responsible for all material aspects for the delivery of the courses (e.g. reproduction of material and acquisition of documents recommended by the consultants, accommodations for the participants and other teaching facilities and equipment).
• The assignments should be completed within 12 calendar months.

According to recent experience, the PWA estimates that the current costs for international procurement consultants are between US$500- to US$750- per working day, travel cost from overseas to the South East African Republic is between US$2,000-3,000- return trip and that daily allowance in the capital city amount to around US$180-200

QUESTION

• Prepare a full Terms of Reference (ToR) and cost estimates for the proposed assignment.
  • Recommend and justify a consultant’s selection procedure and method.
  • The qualification profile of experts required should be clearly stated in the Terms of Reference.

Make any necessary assumptions to enable you answer this question.