BIDDING DOCUMENTS

Chilongani thank you for the information you gave me.

To my opinion, The invitation to tender (as so prescribed under regulation 80, 81) is issued for the purpose of giving prior information on specified tender opportunity. a replica of the same invitation is repeatedly attached in the solicitation document for purpose of indicating concurrance of the subject matter.

However, as so indicated under reg. 82 and 83 of GN 97, the invitation to tender is not mentioned therein to consititute part of solicitation documents.

The importance of having an invitation to tender in concurrance with the issued bidding document is a necessary requirement. However, if there are some inconsistance (Major and/or minor) and there is absolutely no possible feasible alternative to remedy the error, then the solicitation/bidding document overrules.

One needs to consider the basic principles of procurement on every decision made and there is a need to maximize competition as much as possible without defeating the requirement of the Act.

Mathias
I think the bidder should cross check three areas to justify which is true. the three areas in where tender identification number always appear

1. In Letter of Invitation within SBD
   
2. In Bid Data Sheet
   
3. In advertsement (In newspapers). this advertisement is extracted from the letter of invitation means that they are the same.
   

So if at all found that the area number 1 and 3 are different from number 2, and eventually different from cover page, it might be the problem of copy and paste, lack of customization of bidding document as requiremenmt in the PPRA guideline to prepare and customize the bidding document for every new procurement .

The issue of bid cover page, letter of invitation and BDS (BID DATA SHEET), in my view, Letter of invitation and bid data sheet is the content of bidding document. But what the PE should take into account is that, they should not take as non responsive bid during their evaluation of having those errors of different quoted identification tender number, they should also refers their original document remained to them after issued to suppliers/bidders and account as their part of problem.

The Bidder is expected to use the bidding documents to prepare his Bid. One bidder encountered a problem whereby the Identification number of the bid on the cover page and Invitation for bid was different from that in the Bidding Data Sheet.

The bidder noticed this difference when preparing the documents and the time given by the Procuring Entity to respond to request for clarifications has already expired.

Will it be proper for the bidder to use the information on the Bid Data Sheet?
Are the cover page and Invitation for Bid part of the bidding documents?