These notes are intended as a guide to the procedures currently being followed by the ARDS PU.
GENERAL INFORMATION
The official name of the country, under the new constitution, is the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. However, till the new government is elected, two versions of the present title are in use – Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan (TISA) as used by the World Bank, some ministries and ARDS and the alternative of Islamic Transitional State of Afghanistan (ITSA) as used by the Ministry of Finance, many other donors, the PU and the Office of the President of Afghanistan. It should be noted that the first word in the Dari version of the title is the equivalent of “Islamic”, not “Transitional”.
ARDS was established by a Presidential Decree in October 2003, under which it initially reported to the ministers for Planning and Reconstruction. Subsequently ARDS was placed under the supervision of the Minister of Reconstruction alone – but it is not part of the ministry and the staff of ARDS are not technically civil servants or employees of the government. The entire running costs of ARDS are presently funded by the World Bank, through either the Second Emergency Public Administration Project (SEPAP) or the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, Feasibility Studies Facility. No government funding has been allocated to ARDS, although the occupation (rent free) of 2 floors in the Ministry of Planning could be considered as an important contribution by ITSA.
There is not official or legal requirement for any ministry or entity to seek the assistance of the ARDS PU in their procurement and indeed some task managers are pressing for ministries to undertake their own procurement. In practice, many ministries do seek our assistance as they do not have the capacity or the knowledge of donor procedures to do the work themselves. It is important to note that the ARDS PU is not acting as an agent for the ministry but as a facilitator/adviser. All tenders, evaluations and contracts must be in the name of the procuring ministry and signed by an official of that ministry, not by ARDS PU.
REQUEST FOR PU ASSISTANCE
The Minister for Reconstruction has instructed that all requests for action by the PU in support of procurement activity on behalf of any ministry must be in the form of a letter addressed to the Minister for Reconstruction, copied to the Director of ARDS.
This letter should provide the following information:
* AFG number for the procurement, as provided by the Ministry of Finance in the Budget Cycle (this number must be quoted when making requests for payments to suppliers or firms for contracts placed or the Ministry of Finance will not authorise the payment);
* Source of funds – donor, grant/credit title & number;
* Budget or estimated cost of the goods or services;
* Specifications or terms of reference or a clear definition of what goods or services are required;
* Any special target dates or other information about delivery;
* The name of the contact person at the ministry with whom the ARDS PU shall liaise.
The Director of ARDS (or his nominated representative) has been authorised by the Minister for Reconstruction to approve such requests and to instruct the Manager of the Procurement Unit (PUM) to commence action.
REGISTRATION OF NEW WORK
Every potential contract must be assigned a unique identification number by the PUM. Numbers are written on the whiteboard in the office of the PUM and follow the following format:
ARDS/xxx, MOH/xxx, MWP/xxx where the first 3 or 4 letters identify the purchasing entity and the next 3 digits are a unique number, allocated in strict numerical order.
The new work and number are entered on the Procurement Management Information System (PMIS) by the nominated Procurement Adviser (PA) although in practice this has been the Programme Manager for the Procurement Advisers (PMPA).
The work is allocated to an adviser by the PMPA and the request letter passed to the nominated PA.
INITIAL ACTION
The PA drafts an acknowledgement letter to the originating ministry/procuring entity for signature by the PUM. (As a matter of government policy, all correspondence between the ARDS and other government departments and ministries must be signed by the PUM or Director of ARDS, not by the PA). The letter should be copied to the Minister for Reconstruction, the PA and the Procurement Liaison Officer (PLO) who shall be working on this contract.
This letter should advise the reference number that has been allocated for the work, the name of the PA who shall handle it, the name of the PLO who shall work with the ministry and raise any questions that may arise from the request.
The PA must prepare an appropriate Check List and indicate likely time-frames for the relevant activities. Where we do not have clear ToRs or specifications, it may not be possible to indicate actual dates, just the number of days for each activity. The Check List must be edited to suit the procurement and be a reasonable estimate of the times that could be expected. The Check List must be attached the letter sent to the ministry/procuring entity. Samples of the Check Lists are attached at Annex A.
The PA shall arrange for the opening of a contract file (usually a large ring binder) with the appropriate identification number marked on the spine. All important documents pertaining to the procurement must be filed in this binder – the PA is responsible for ensuring that the file is properly maintained.
The PA shall check the relevant agreement from the donor – grant, credit or loan (where available) and ensure that the appropriate procurement method, thresholds and prior-review requirements are copied to the contract file. This is important to ensure that the particular procurement requirements are easily referred to by anyone using the contract file. Copies of grant & credit agreements (when available) and/or Technical Annexes are stored in a cupboard in the office of the PUM/PMPA.
SPECIAL PROCURMENT NOTICES & ADVERTISING
Kabul is served by some of the well-known courier firms (TNT, DHL & FEDEX) but delivery times can be much longer than to most other countries. Experience shows that at least 6 weeks should be allowed for the return of EoIs or quotes/bids if hard copies are required. Typically we allow 4 - 5 weeks for the submission of simple EoIs by email (limited to 5 pages), with an additional 5 days or so for the associated brochures, accounts etc to be delivered by courier. Task managers and some ministries try to pressure us to allow shorter time-frames but this has rarely been satisfactory and such deadlines have often had to be extended.
The PU has been instructed by past ARDS Directors that all procurement opportunities should be advertised locally. In practice Special Procurement Notices (SPNs) are advertised in at least 2 local newspapers and opportunities for International Shopping have also been advertised to encourage local participation. The Chief of Staff of the Director of ARDS will arrange the publication and payment for the notices. Newspapers are either weekly or twice weekly, so you need to allow at least 7 days from the date the notice is provided for publication for any return of any EoIs or requests to register (in the case of shopping) or bids.
The World Bank require that the project place the SPN on-line but this is not very effective at present. The PMPA or the PUM shall request the task manager to register the PA to allow for on-line publication of the SPN. Detailed guidelines for this activity are attached at Annex B. The PMPA usually places the notices on DB-OnLine.
The Asian Development Bank places its own SPN but frequently use incorrect or inappropriate information.
The practice at the ARDS PU has been not to give a name as a contact in the SPN but instead to refer to the Procurement Adviser and to use procurement@afghanistangov.org as the email address to submit EoIs and queries. This is to avoid individual PAs being called on their mobile phones, or queries coming to them when they may be on leave. The Procurement Officer (PO) responsible for the registration of interested firms and data base handles the procurement@afghanistan.gov mail box and forwards mails to the appropriate PA.
Once an SPN has been published on-line, the PA should arrange for copies to be emailed to all interested firms that have registered with the PU as well as to embassies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (who forward it to their embassies) and trade missions that have requested copies of such email notices. Hard copies should be sent to those embassies in Kabul without email and must be sent to the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Reconstruction and copies should be sent to all Afghan agencies (such as the Chamber of Commerce, Afghanistan Traders & Industrialists Center etc). The PO in charge of the supplier register will issue these notices, electronically or by hard copy and shall keep a record of everyone to whom the notices were issued. The PA must ensure that this has been done and that a copy of the issue notice is placed on the contract file.
PREPARATION OF SHORT LISTS FOR CONSULTANTS
Normally EoIs are received at the PU and details recorded on a spread sheet, a copy of which should be filed on the contract file. The PA is responsible for ensuring the list is prepared but the PLO should make the list.
We do not normally undertake the evaluation and short-listing as this should be the responsibility of the procuring entity/ministry. Instead the PA shall prepare a guide for the evaluation committee to use to examine each EoI as well as provide a template for the short-listing report to be completed by the evaluation committee.
Remember that the WB require that requests for their No Objection Letter (NoL) to short lists must be accompanied by a statement to explain why firms from a developing country are not included on the list (if there are no such firms, that is) as well as paragraph to explain why a firm has been short listed. The WB does not want to see any reference to a points system.
Normally the evaluation committee should sign the report and this would be scanned and emailed to the Task Manager by the PA for the NoL. Remember to always copy requests for NoLs to the PMPU and the WB procurement specialist involved with the project.
IDENTIFYING SUPPLIERS/FIRMS FOR PROCUREMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Initially this shall be based upon the list of firms that have registered with the ARDS PU for either this particular project or any project. Depending upon the nature of the goods we have found it necessary to email 20-30 firms to ask if they would be interested in quoting for the items in order to obtain a list of 5-6 interested firms. Try to include Afghan firms as much as possible, especially for computers.
Usually we email every consultancy firm on our list with a copy of SPNs for services and every construction firm with SPNs for works. This at the very least ensures that potential bidders are notified.
REQUESTS FOR PROPOSALS/TENDERS/ICB ETC
The PA prepares the bidding documents with the close involvement of the PLO working with the ministry. For new projects or where prior review is required, it is advisable to email an advance copy of the tender docs to the task manager copied to the WB procurement specialist (Qamrul Hassan on shassan@worldbank.org) to seek their comments – not their NoL. Once agreement has been reached with the WB (or ADB), the documents must be discussed and agreed with the procuring ministry – typically get the Deputy Minister involved to sign on a copy of the documents that he agrees. Then we can officially seek the NoL to the documents on behalf of the procuring ministry.
Copies of the NoL must be provided to the procuring ministry along with all important communications concerning the progress of a procurement exercise. The PLO responsible for the ministry shall ensure that such copies are hand delivered and, where necessary, translated and explained.
Because of the cost of and time spent by using couriers and the inconvenience of receiving payments from bidders for tender documents (we cannot easily process cheques for example), we have tended to issue bidding documents electronically – either as an email attachment (as a PDF document is preferable) or copied to a CD (provided by the bidder). This increases the risk that a bidder may change the documents and so it is essential that the PA’s check all bids very carefully, especially the General Conditions and Special Conditions.
Unless a procuring ministry has suitable secure accommodation and facilities, EoIs, Proposals and bids are normally received here at the ARDS and so our official address should be used for the delivery of documents.
EVALUATION OF BIDS/PROPOSALS/OFFERS
It is the general principle of the ARDS PU that the procuring ministry should have responsibility for accepting the goods or services that have been offered to them. It is therefore important that the evaluation committee does not include ARDS PU staff other than as advisers. In most cases the PA shall prepare a template and guidance notes on how to carry out an evaluation and discuss this with the evaluation committee, with the assistance and participation of the PLO. If one or two vehicles or other relatively simple goods procurement is undertaken, the PA & PLO may prepare a simple evaluation and have that approved by the procuring ministry, for speed – this is normally acceptable.
In some cases the PA (with the PLO) has undertaken a full evaluation in parallel with that of the evaluation committee. This often helps to speed up the process but must be handled with tact and our report not simply handed over to the procuring ministry to sign.
CONTRACTS
The PA/PLO prepares contracts and has them signed by the procuring ministry, often after discussing the content. Four (4) originals should be prepared, with the ministry signing all 4. If the consultant or supplier is in Kabul, he can also sign all 4 copies which are then distributed as follows:
1 original to the procuring ministry
1 original to the supplier/firm
2 originals to the ARDS PU (to ensure one is retained securely for the auditor and one is used to make copies for the World Bank and Ministry of Finance)
If the supplier/firm is not in Kabul, we send all 4 copies by DHL courier to them for signature. (Crown Agents have an account and a contract with DHL such that we obtain a discounted service. Crown Agents (the PMPA) pays for the packages despatched by DHL and recover the cost from the World Bank via our monthly invoices. ARDS currently does not have an account with any courier company and should consider this).The supplier/firm should be asked to retain 1 original and return 3 originals to ARDS PU (along with their invoice and/or advance payment guarantee or any other documents required to start the contract). The documents should be distributed as above.
Note that the data-sender/digisender is the best way to forward a scanned, electronic copy of the signed contract to the WB. Usually best for the PLO to send the document to the PA and their own email account, for forwarding to the WB.
Original advance payment guarantees should be sent to the Special Disbursements Unit (SDU) of the Ministry of Finance for safe keeping. A copy must be retained in the ARDS PU along with a record of when the original was passed to the SDU. The PO responsible for payments is also responsible for maintaining a register of all guarantees that have been received by the PU, especially their expirary date and location.
A copy of the contract must be filed on the contract file and the original(s) (or copy if no original available) filed in the contract folder which is kept locked in the filing cabinets in the PU main room. The only other document that should be in the contract folder in the cabinet is a copy of the performance and/or advance payment security. All other documents must be on the contract file in the cupboards in the tea-room.
CUSTOMS CLEARANCE
Although it is the responsibility of the procuring ministry to assist with the documentation required to clear customs in Heart and Karachi very few, if any, have the capacity. Instead the ARDS PU assists in this process. The PO (Customs) handles the preparation of the letters that are required to be signed by the procuring ministry as well as from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The PO (Customs) also assists with transit problems, usually through Pakistan, by ensuring all required documents have been made available and signed by the correct authority. Upon arrival in Kabul the PO (Customs) helps with any local customs issues and then obtains the Acceptance Certificate from the consignee. The Acceptance Certificate must be sent to the supplier by the PA/PLO.
PAYMENTS
The PAs are responsible for drafting letter of credit application forms and submitting them to the PO (Payments) who shall then register them and process them through to the SDU and Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB). We have faced lots of problems over LCs mainly due to Citibank in New York (that advises them on behalf of DAB, who actually issue them) who have a tendency to change the LC terms and conditions and documentary requirements without consulting the opener. The Special Commitment from the WB to cover the LCs is made to Citibank and not the paying bank in accordance with an agreement between DAB, the WB & Citibank. This sometimes causes problems when the beneficiary wants the payment through his local bank, not confirmed by Citibank but with the special commitment direct to the paying bank.
The PAs are responsible for checking all invoices and requests for payments and guarantees, to ensure they are in accordance with the contract. The PAs should also check all correspondence prepared by the PO (Payments) to the SDU/DAB before these are submitted to the PUM or PMPA to sign. It is essential that the Pas check that all figures are correct and all documents are in accordance with the contract or the payment request will be rejected.
The procedure for processing payments through the SDU and DAB is often amended so it is essential to check with the PO (Payments) or the PMPA for the latest situation. Correspondent bank details are normally required by DAB and/or Citibank in order to effect payments, especially when a supplier requires payment to his local bank in a currency that does not belong to his country. EG USD payments to a euro-zone bank – even when the bank has a USD account and can receive such payments, Citibank require a correspondent bank in the USA to which they can make the payment.
