Re: ‘TENDER BOARD CAN BE EFFICIENT AND COST CONSCIOUS…..’ AN ALTERNATIVE OPINION

[RJM]

RSM
It is evident that through submissions, there is a resistance to change from the old era where TBs used to open tenders [from CTB era] especially members of TB. There is outcry from the TB members that PPRA is trying to confiscate their right given by the procurement legislation under S66(1)/2004 and R89(1)/97/2005. Do the referred Section and Regulation blessing TBs to open bids automatically? What are the core functions of the TB? I believe are those prescribed in S30/2004. One day I had discussion with one of the members TB, he told me that they want to have a “control of the process” from that stage. When asked him what kind of control and why? This was the end of discussion. I believe there a lot reasons are given by TB members which have not surfaced. Since this issue is centre of controversies among the practitioners, this should come up very clearly whose responsibility when it comes to tenders opening in the coming legislations.

[RSM]

Chilongani,

I concur with your view point. Indeed it is not right that the secrtariat should not be paid for tender opening. The reduction in cost was meant to reduce the number of those participating in the tender opening- in some PEs the whole Tender Board would convene for tender opening - which as I said it does not add value to the whole exercise.

I think it would be prudent for PEs that have problems with regard to this issue to submit a formal enquiry to PPRA.

[Michael Chilongani]

Mr RSM

I highly concur with the philosophy of Tender Board delegating the function to the Secretariat on the basis of establishing a subcommittee of the Tender Board for opening of the Tenders. The merits of such delegation can not be overlooked and under para 7 of my article I expressed this. However, the problem is on the Author’s implied phenomena of ‘shifting’ the responsibility to the secretariat with a motive of cost saving through compelling the secretariat to perform the exercise at zero cost.

Mr RSM, the main issue here is that finding have revealed some PEs are having the understanding of the Author and may have gone far and may have ‘shifted’ the responsibility to the secretariat’ who are to perform the delegated function of tender opening at an optimum cost of zero!. It should be understood here that administration of the law is not without some costs. One can strive to minimize such costs but the optimal minimum is not always zero.

My worry is that such an arrangement is likely to invite some complains from members of the secretariat. The arrangement is also not in compliance with PPRA circular No. PPRA/CPR/253/41 of 7th July, 2007 with a title ‘ Circular on guidance to reduce procurement transaction costs’ of which under part (c) PPRA is having an understanding that there can be Tender Opening Committees and that the Minister of Finance approved the payment of sitting allowances whenever they hold meeting.

I am not quite sure if the Minister approved Zero allowances to Tender Opening Committees and under the said Circular, PPRA mentioned various measures of cost reductions of which non payment of allowances to Tender Opening Committees is not among them.

I still think it could be prudent for PPRA to issue clarification on the implication of the said delegation of Tender Opening function to Tender Opening Committees whose members (for expitize reasons) are members of the Secretariat.

[RSM]

Chilongani

Lets push this topic further.

1. If you are a procurement practitioner- which I think you are, you remember the era of the Central Tender Board. During that era it was the responsibility of the Central Tender Board to open tenders but they delagated that function to the secratariat - and in all those years nothing went wrong at the tender opening ceremony.

2. Consider an institution which has a lot of tenders, which means TB members if they are involved in tender opening they have to devote almost all their time to this task alone, leaving their core function unattended - remember TB members are supposed to be senior members of the organisation.

3. An important function of TB is "to adjudicate on recommendations from PMU and Review all applications for variations, adenda or ammendments to ongoing contracts". During the opening of tenders is there any adjudication made? I surely do not see that TB members add any value in the tender process at this time- particularly if they already did their job properly in approving the tender document to remove any ambiguity that may be contained therein

I beg to submit

[GadielCM]

Chilongani,
I would prefer to act from your submission relatively to that of Article in TPJ Supplement on 23/03/2010, as follows;-

1. Let us think about the line of Authorities for decision making in any public office and general accountability for the same when we are talking the award of contract.For me, I agree that in all cases the Act and its Regulations, I dont see any provision of the Accounting Officer/CEO to award the contract rather than tender board as stipulated Section 68 of the PPA 2004 and in the Rg 96/GN 97/2005 and that of Rg 66(19-a) and Rg 67(1)/GN 98/2005 but saying this is not excluding the AO/CEO the responsibility of the awarded contract.
   

Logically, tender board is there to help the AO/CEO to summarize the procurement proceedings but the accountability of the contract implications is the AO/CEO who in the context of application of any law is the one who sign the contract on behalf of the Office.Besides of mandatory of the tender board to award the contract, yet section 33/PPA 2004 prevail in the rule of law that the one who award the contract is the one capable to communicate and sign the particular contract and is the one who is responsible for any implementation of the signed contract if at all things goes right or things goes wrong in the event of contract implementation.

2.On the issue of tender opening committee in essence of reducing tendering cost. For me , I think, PMU is the secretariate to the tender board, like the Management team in any public office act as a secretariate to the Board of Directors or Trustees in which all day to day, and duties discharged by the public Office is on behalf of the board presence.In this submission its the readers to scrunity the correlation of Secretariate (PMU) against Tender Board in the matter of procurement proceedings in PE's and that of Secretariate (Management) against Board of Directors/Trustees in other hand. That will be a simple logic to reach in a good interpretation of the regulations cited.

I submit.

[Michael Chilongani]

‘TENDER BOARD CAN BE EFFICIENT AND COST CONSCIOUS…..’ AN ALTERNATIVE OPINION

In the Tanzania Procurement Journal (TPJ), issue No 1821 – 6021 Vol. II No. 13 Supplement No. 11 issued on 23rd March, 2010 there was an article with a title ‘Tender Board can be more efficient and cost conscious…’ The Anonymity author discussed two issues including: -
1. Challenge on the ‘Mandate for approving contract award’ and
2. Challenge on ‘The interpretation of responsibility of tender opening’.

Under the first challenge, (not directly related to the title) the Author discussed and provided some clarifications by citing relevant sections. In the second challenge (related to a phenomenon of cost consciousness), the Author discussed and concluded that there will be significant saving if tender opening costs are ‘minimized’ by ‘shifting’ the responsibility to the Secretariat of the Tender Board (implying they are to execute the exercise at zero cost!)

The objective of paper is to examine the facts outlined by the author with a view of issuing an alternative opinion on the said challenge on the responsibility of tender opening as being motivated by cost reduction but in line with provision of the PPA 2004.

The connotation in using the term Tender Board and Secretariat interchangeably does not imply shifting of functions and/or responsibilities of different groups involved in procurement circle. The Author mixed some roles in execution of functions of Tender Board and the Secretariat which is a sub function of Procurement Management Unit.

The PMU assume the role of Secretariat to the Tender Board pursuant to section 35 (e) of the PPA 2004. The term secretariat as harnessed from dictionaries means and include: -an office responsible for the secretarial, clerical, and administrative affairs of a legislative body, executive council, or international organization, the staff of such an office, secretary's place of work or office or the position of a secretary.

Tender Opening ceremonies are conducted through Tender Board meeting. The Secretariat role is to arrange for such a meeting pursuant to Regulation 89 (6) of GN 97 that states The Secretary of the Tender Board that approved the issue of the tender shall convene a meeting for the purpose of opening the tender …. The Secretariat as an office can not convene Tender Board meeting constituting members from its own office and call it a Tender Board meeting!

There is a general concurrence with the author that there is a need for some arrangement for the purpose of cost saving in various areas including Tender Opening. The Tender Board can be achieve this through establishment of Tender Board subcommittee as so prescribed in the second schedule under item No. 10 and so mentioned under Regulation 89 (14) of GN 97. The Tender Opening committee as a subcommittee of the Tender Board may compose members from the secretariat (for expertise reason). Allowances payable to members of this committee may be set at relatively lower rates compared to normal payments made to Tender Board members who are head of departments (or person of similar standing) thus saving cost.

In view of the above, the three questions asked by the Author are answered as follows: -
• The presence of tender board members is required because it is a tender board meeting pursuant to Regulation 89 (6). The Tender Board meeting can not be composed of members from the secretariat office.
• Although there is no decision but there is a Tender Board meeting for opening of tenders as prescribed in the above regulation. The Head of PMU is the secretary as per second schedule item 2C and his office act as Secretariat to the Tender Board as per Section 35(e).
• Cost may be saved through establishment of Tender Opening Committees which are subcommittees of Tender Board with members being paid allowances at relatively lower rates than that of Tender Board members.

To my view, the opinion of anonymity Author attract some clarification as to whether these are directives from PPRA or rather opinions from unnamed fellow. However, since the Journal is issued by the Authority then one can at least deduce a presumption of PPRA’s inclination towards Author’s opinion. Such being the case it is high time for PPRA to issue an official circular regarding this area in line with PPA.

Submitted for further discussions including a request for PPRA’s stand

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