PWD Part II, Procedural Directives, Volume A 15.3 step 10

Step 10. Negotiations and Award of Contract

The process of negotiation includes discussions of the TOR, the proposed methodology, staffing, client’s input, and special conditions of the contract. Negotiations shall not substantially alter the original TOR or the conditions of contract. The following guidelines shall be followed:

• The consultant shall duly authorise its representative to negotiate on technical as well as financial conditions and to conclude a binding agreement.
• The final TOR and the agreed methodology shall be incorporated in the “Description of Services”, which shall form an integral part of the contract.
• The consultant’s comments on the TOR may be discussed and incorporated in the Description of Services.
• Major reduction in the work inputs shall not be made solely to meet the budget.
• The selected consultant shall not be allowed to substitute key staff, unless both parties agree that undue delay in the selection process makes such substitution unavoidable or that such changes are critical to meet the objectives of the assignment. Any staff proposed for substitution shall have qualifications equal to or better than the staff proposed initially.
• The selected consultant may be disqualified at the negotiation stage if it is established that the key staff were offered in the proposal without conconsultanting their availability.
• Proposed unit rates for staff-months and reimbursables shall not be negotiated, since these have already been a factor in the selection process unless there are exceptional reasons.
• If negotiations fail to result in an acceptable contract, the client shall terminate negotiations and invite the next ranked consultant for negotiations. The client shall not reopen the earlier negotiations while negotiating with the next ranked consultant.
• After negotiations are successfully completed, the client shall promptly notify unsuccessful consultants that they were unsuccessful.
• The contract shall then be signed with the successful consultant.
• After concluding the agreement with the successful consultant, the financial proposals of the unsuccessful consultants shall be returned to them unopened.
• Rejection of all proposals is possible only if all proposals are non-responsive and unsuitable either because they present major deficiencies in complying with the TOR, or because they involve substantially higher costs than the original estimates. In the latter case, the feasibility of increasing the budget, or scaling down the scope of services with the highest scoring consultant should be investigated.
• Information relating to evaluation of proposals and recommendations concerning awards shall not be disclosed until the award of contract is notified to the successful consultant. Comparative chart of technical and financial evaluation shall be made available to the applicant consultants in a confidential manner if they request a copy.

Authority to approve consultant contracts is shown below.

Step 10.1 Format for Contract Agreement
Standard forms of agreement for consultant services for large and small assignments and complex time based and lump sum contracts are contained in Part III Standard Bidding Documents.