For a government institution (procuring entity) to get the best result out of a procurement process, it has to give potential suppliers a sufficient description of what it wants to procure (description of requirements). This is done by providing enough details of the attributes of the requirements and their specific characteristics so that bidders are able to prepare and submit relevant bids fitting for the entity’s purpose, and the best offers from many bidders come out easily and bad ones are easily rejected. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
Some procuring entities fail to describe appropriately the right quality of goods or services to be procured, a failure which in turn leads to such entities failing to reject a bad offer and thus ending up selecting any offer with the lowest price. When this entity’s failure produces undesirable consequences, it puts the blame on the legal system.
But in reality, what the legal instruments require procuring entities is to design specifications with objectivity and neutrality and to refrain from referring to a particular brand, trade name, design type, and specific origin or producer. The instruments do not restrict the entities from designing fair and detailed specifications that are needed to achieve the latter’s objectives on the one hand, and which reflect fundamental principles governing public procurement, on the other hand.
To illustrate the issue of inadequate description of goods or services, we examine a tender that was advertised by one entity.
On 18/11/2021, an entity XYZ advertised a tender for "Provision of Domestic Entertainment/Musician Services” (ref: Umucyo e-procurement system). The description of requirements (called the terms of reference in this tender) had weaknesses that could have bad implications both for the selection of the right supplier and contract management if the supplier was selected based on this tender document. The weaknesses consisted of the lack of details and distinct characteristics in the services to be provided. The terms of reference gave the following list of 9 services to be provided:
1. Entertaining the public in XYZ ceremonies with songs and dancers involving musicians
2. Production of an audio song highlighting specific themes as will be defined by XYZ
3. Production of a video song highlighting specific themes as defined by XYZ
4. Transport in the City of Kigali
5. Transport outside Kigali
6. Provision of a stage during performance
7. Provision of a sound system during performance
8. Provision of his/her image to be used in adverts
9. Provision of his/her sound to be used in adverts
This list of services to be provided was given in a table with three columns (first column for the services, second column for quantity, and third column for price) and the only additional information provided was the quantity for the services which was indicated as 1 for each service "in order to enable pricing by bidders”. Such a scanty description of requirements is not uncommon in tender documents advertised by government institutions in Rwanda with adverse consequences as mentioned above.
The above list of services can be divided into three groups: entertainment services, logistics for the entertainment services, and image and sound for adverts. All of them lack details that should enable a supplier to understand both the quantity and quality of the services to be provided, which may cause underestimation or overestimation of the technical and financial requirements during the preparation of his/her bid.
For the entertainment services, the duration and time (day and night) for a given performance and whether there were intervals during an individual performance should have been given to enable the potential suppliers to understand the scope (quantity) of work. In addition, the minimum number of required singers and dancers should have been mentioned.
Regarding the expected quality, it was important to mention whether the musicians should have been those who had produced songs of their own or whether that was not necessary, the language of the songs, the type of the dances (it is not right to say "it will depend on the specific ceremony; a list of dances to select from for a given ceremony should be given) and the type of attire acceptable for the singers and dancers.
With logistics for entertainment, the following should have been added to help the bidder fully understand the scope. Instead of just mentioning "transport in the City of Kigali and transport outside Kigali, it should have been useful to add anywhere within the districts of the City of Kigali and anywhere on the territory of Rwanda respectively. In addition, with the help of technicians, the expected capacity, strength, and beauty of the stage should have been mentioned as well as the minimum acceptable capacity of the sound system.
For the image and sound of the performer, it could have been useful to add whether the picture (image of the performer) would have been taken during a performance (dance or song) or in any other situation how long the sound should be played and on what subject.
As mentioned in part one, "the main reason behind this situation is lack of adequate understanding of the legal instruments which leads to and enforces what can be termed as Prosecution Phobia”. In this case, some government officials responsible for public procurement think that it is sufficient to achieve the institutions’ objectives just by advertising a tender since this is in accordance with the law (and makes them safe from prosecution).
They do not invest sufficient time and energy in other necessary actions like market surveys, description of requirements, and contract management which are crucial if good results are to be achieved from a procurement process.
The writer is an independent observer and can be reached at: seminegaa1@gmail.com.