INVITATION TO TENDER SUPPY, INSTALLATION AND TRAINING ON THE USAGE OF COMPUTER ASSISTED AUDIT TOOLS & TECHNIQUES (CAAT) TENDER No.

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1 INVITATION TO TENDER SUPPY, INSTALLATION AND TRAINING ON THE USAGE OF COMPUTER ASSISTED AUDIT TOOLS & TECHNIQUES (CAAT) TENDER No. CS/ /1 January 2013 (Readvertised February 2013)

2 Introduction The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa is a regional grouping of nineteen African States which have agreed to cooperate in the development of their respective economies through regional integration and trade development. The COMESA Internal Audit unit undertakes continuous auditing of key organizational risk indicators. This initiative aims to identify risk indicators in both administrative and operational areas for timely management of the impact arising from the materialization of organizational risks. In order to increase efficiencies in the continuous analysis of automated data, the Unit plans to acquire and install a data analysis software. The specifications of the system are attached as Annex B to this document. INSTRUCTIONS TO BIDDERS 1. Eligibility to Tender Bidders are invited from suitably qualified firms from the COMESA Member States and EU Member States to participate in the bid 2. REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATIONS For any technical queries or request for clarifications related to specifications of items kindly contact [email protected]. All queries must be submitted in writing . All queries on this tender must be submitted to COMESA before 11 th March 2013 and should be addressed to [email protected]. Interested bidders wishing to receive a copy of the responses to requests for clarifications should register using the above address. 3. Cost of Tender The Bidder shall bear all costs associated with the preparation and submission of the bid. COMESA will in no case be responsible or liable for those costs, regardless of the conduct and outcome of the tender. 4. Bid Currencies/Bid Prices All prices shall be quoted in Zambia (ZMW). Any bids expressed in other currencies shall be converted to Zambia Kwacha using the exchange rate of the Bank of Zambia ruling on the closing date. 5. VAT and other taxes Prices must be exclusive of all taxes in Zambia 6. Price Variation

3 Quoted rate should include all overheads and profits. The rate should be firm for the entire contract period. There will be no price variation after signing of contract. Currency exchange fluctuations will be a non factor. 7. Period of validity of Bids The Bids shall remain valid for Ninety (90) days after the closing date of Bid submission. In exceptional circumstances and prior to the expiry of the original tender validity period, the contracting authority may ask tenderers in writing for an extension of this period of 60 days. Tenderers that agree to do so will not be permitted to modify their tenders. If they refuse, their participation in the tender procedure will be terminated. 8. Amendments of Bid documents At any time prior to the deadline for submission of Bids, COMESA, for any reason, whether at its own initiative or in response to a clarification requested by a prospective Bidder, may modify the Bidding Documents by issuing an addendum. All addenda shall be posted on the COMESA website All bidders wishing to be notified of any addenda should provide to COMESA the bidders name and address. In order to afford prospective Bidders reasonable time in which to take the amendments into account in preparing their offers, COMESA may, at its discretion, extend the deadline for the submission of bids. 9. Format and sealing of Bids The Bidder shall prepare four (4) copies of the Technical bid and Financial bid in separate envelopes, clearly marking one as Original " and the other three as "Copy. In the event of any discrepancy between them, the original shall govern. The inner and outer envelopes shall be sealed and addressed to Chairman - Procurement Committee, COMESA Secretariat, Ben Bella Road, P.O. Box 30051, Lusaka, Zambia, Attention: Procurement Unit And marked in the top right hand corner SUPPY, INSTALLATION AND TRAINING ON THE USAGE OF COMPUTER ASSISTED AUDIT TOOLS & TECHNIQUES (CAAT) TENDER No. CS/ /1 DO NOT OPEN BEFORE 15 th March 2013 at HRS Lusaka time. 10. Deadline for Submission of Bids The deadline for the submission of bids is 15 th March 2013 at Hours Lusaka Time

4 (GMT+2). 11. Late Tenders Any Tender received by COMESA after the deadline for submission of Bids shall be rejected. There shall be no exception to this requirement. 12. Required Documents to be submitted A prospective party will be expected to, among other things, submit: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) (vi) (vii) Profile of the company Proof pertaining to the eligibility of the bidders i.e copy of the registration of the firm, copies of the income tax returns for the preceding two years; Copy of the dealership certificate from the original supplier of software (if different from bidder; Compliance with technical specifications of the system s equipment; Details of service/support infrastructure Product brochures containing detailed description of essential technical and performance characteristics of offered software Undertaking to provide comprehensive onsite one-year warranty. The financial bid (in a separate envelope) shall contain: (i) Bid prices for the software and any associated installation & Training costs. 13. Evaluation and Comparison of Bids To assist in the examination, evaluation and comparison of Bids, COMESA may ask the Bidder for clarification of its Bid. The request for clarification and the response shall be in writing and no change in price or substance of the Bid shall be sought, offered or permitted. COMESA will examine the Bids to determine whether they are complete, whether any computational errors have been made, whether the documents have been properly signed, and whether the Bids are generally in order. Arithmetical errors will be rectified on the following basis: If there is a discrepancy between the unit price and the total price that is obtained by multiplying the unit price and quantity, the unit price shall prevail and the total price shall be corrected. If the Bidder does not accept the correction of errors, its Bid will be rejected. If there is a discrepancy between words and figures, the amount in words will prevail. Prior to the detailed evaluation, the Procurement Committee will determine the substantial responsiveness of each Tender. For purposes of these Clauses, a substantially responsive Bid is one, which conforms to all the terms and conditions of the Tender without material deviations. COMESA s determination of a Bid's responsiveness is based on the contents of the Bid itself without recourse to extrinsic evidence. A bid determined as not substantially responsive will be rejected by the COMESA and may not subsequently be made responsive by the Bidder by correction of the non-conformity.

5 Each bid shall be evaluated by a selection committee utilizing a number of criteria, as specified below: i) Experience in the supply, installation and maintenance work in IT systems at least for the last five years. The proof of such experience in any government organization or in private companies should be attached with the tender. ii) Authorised dealership of quoted product(s). The latest copy of dealership certificate from the Original Equipment Manufacturer should be attached with the bid. iii) Technical literature for each product/service, covering full technical specifications. iv) Warranty period The COMESA Secretariat does not bind itself to accept any bid and reserves the right to accept the whole or partially any of the submitted bids. 14. Technical Queries For any technical queries related to the terms of reference, kindly contact send written enquiries to the following address: [email protected]. Note that the deadline for submitting questions is 07 th Lusaka time. February, 2013 by hours 15. Ownership of Tenders The Contracting Authority retains ownership of all tenders received under this Request for Bids. Consequently, bidders have no right to have their tenders returned to them. 16. Negotiation and Finalization After the selection of the best bid and notificatoin to the selected party, the COMESA Secretariat will commence negotiations with that party for purposes of concluding an agreement for the supply, installation,commissioning and maintenance of the system. 17. Award of Contract Prior to expiration of the period of bid validity, the Procurement Committee will award the contract to the qualified Bidder whose Bid after being evaluated is considered to be the most responsive to the needs of the organization and activity concerned. COMESA reserves the right to wholly or partially reject or award these contracts to any bidder and has no obligation to award this tender to the highest ranked bidder. COMESA also reserves the right to annul the Bid process and reject all Bids at any time prior to award of contract, without thereby incurring any liability to the affected Bidder(s). 18. Cancellation of the Tender In the event of cancellation of the tender, bidders will be notified in writing of the cancellation by the contracting Authority and informed of the reasons for cancellation.

6 If the tender is cancelled before the outer envelope of any bid has been opened, the unopened and sealed envelopes will be returned to the bidders. 19. Signing of the Contract Within 14 days of receipt of the contract the successful Bidder shall sign and date the contract and return it to the COMESA Secretariat. 20. Period of execution The period of execution of the contract starts from the date of the signing of the contract and is estimated to take 2 months. 21. Defect Liability Period The Defect Liability Period shall be at least 12 months from the date of handing over the system to COMESA. During the defect liability period the tenderer shall have to maintain the system at his cost in working condition for all items. 22. Payment Terms and Conditions All payments for the work relating to the supply, installation and training on the usage of COMPUTER ASSISTED AUDIT TOOLS & TECHNIQUES (CAAT) would be made after satisfactory completion of work, subject to work being executed in accordance with the contract. 23. Confidentiality Information relating to evaluation of bids and recommendations concerning awards, shall NOT be disclosed to the Bidders who submitted the bids or to other persons not officially concerned with the process, until the winning firm has been notified that it has been awarded the contract. 24. Corrupt or Fraudulent Practices COMESA requires that Bidders/Suppliers/Firms observe the highest standard of ethics during the procurement and executions of such contracts. For the purposes of this provision, COMESA defines the terms set forth below as follows: (i) "corrupt practice" means the offering, giving, receiving or soliciting of anything of value to influence the action of a public official in the procurement process or in contract execution: and (ii) "fraudulent practice" means a misrepresentation of facts in order to influence a procurement process or the execution of a contract to the detriment of the COMESA, and includes collusive practice among Bidders (prior to or after bid

7 submission) designed to establish bid prices at artificial non-competitive levels and to deprive COMESA of the benefits of free and open competition. ANNEX A: SPECIFICATIONS OF THE SYSTEM The data analysis software shall have the following capabilities: 1. Import data from various formats including files from accounting software; 2. Connect to the databases in COMESA namely, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access; 3. Support the integrity of data by allowing read only access to data; 4. Support the analysis of data for audits through the following: a. Extract specific records; b. Identify missing and duplicate records; c. Detect errors; d. Correlate data and undertake trend analysis; e. Sample data; f. Use multi data files for cross matching, validation and accommodating information from different data sources; g. Sample, join, append, compare and produce statistics; h. Produce data analysis results in the form of pivot tables, reports, charts, exports and project overview; and i. Automate repetitive tasks and create special tests and/or functions. Further, the software should be compatible to COMESA s computing platform that comprises Windows and Linux The supplier of the system will be expected to not only install the software on selected laptops but equally train internal auditors on the usage of the software while using COMESA s internally generated data