Procurement Recommendations

Provide Provide update on completed actions

Review Review if any completed actions might need improvements

Provide Provide update on actions not yet completed

Agree on Agree on completion date for remaining actions.

Procurement Recommendations
Key Recommendations are:

Annual vendor review & using AVL (4)

Using 15% Rule (25)

Selection crietria & user specifications (11-12)

Procurement SoP (18)

Procurement Work-flow (19)

Procurement Tracker (29)

Annual Vendor Review

Ensure that the annual vendor review includes an assessment if there are enough
vendors in each type of procurement.

that the procurement committee reviews the approved vendor report and
analyzes the procurement vendors s to verify they have the necessary goods and
services.

Compile a list of vendors in each procurement category.

 Define date when this will start

Select the team to conduct annual vendor review

Annual Provide guidelines how the review will be conducted

Vendor IA suggestions:
• Review vendors’ eligibility: request all vendors to provide legal

Review documents (Tax ID, Commercial registration, Zakhat cards) at

this stage
• Upload legal docs in PS for each vendor and update
• No need to request for legal docs during RFQ/quotation stage
as all vendors’ info is updated
• Legal docs not used as part of technical analysis.
 ACD-PS to decide which methods and
communicate to selected team

Which
method to
For procurement below $150,000, the
ACD-PS to give clear instructions on how procurement team to ensure that only
to complete vendor review those vendors in the AVL will receive the
RFQ.

use in the As part of the review of quotations

during the bid opening, the

vendor
ACD-PS to issue memo to all teams
(including procurement/tender
committees) that:
procurement committee to check
whether the vendors are set up in the PS
AVL before reviewing the quotations.
Obtain an explanation for any deviation

review?
in the requirement.

Procurement representative to notify

committee about vendors’ current
status in PS before opening the bids.
 Moving forward, ACD-PS to issue
memo/instructions that the
procurement teams to ensure that Memo to indicate start date.
vendor cost price analysis is
prepared for all direct purchases.

Vendor ACD-P to formulate, document

Cost-Price
and communicate how cost price
analysis will be accomplished,
who will conduct the CPA and
when it must be completed.

Analysis Finance team to refrain from

processing transactions if no
ACD-PS to issue memo to Finance
vendor cost price analysis is
to this effect.
attached to procurement
supporting documentations.
Cost-Price Analysis…. Cont’d
• Cost price analysis to ensure that price info is objective and
transparent.
• Team to consider whether price info will be obtained from vendors
who will also receive the quotes.
Quotation Trackers
• ACD-PS to issue memo that, moving forward, the procurement team
ensures that quotations from the vendors are logged in the quotation
tracking sheets.
• ACD-P to designate responsibility for preparing & updating quotation
tracking sheet
• The tracker should include the date and time the vendors submitted the
quotations and their signatures. The tracker should be password protected.
• Procurement committee to ensure only those vendors who submitted the
quotations within the deadline will be considered in the evaluation. Implies
tracker will be shared with committee for each procurement.
Manual Vendors’ List in AOs
• ACD-PS to issue memo to all AO teams regarding manual vendors’
lists
• Procurement team to set up all vendors in the manual list
maintained in the area offices.
• Ensure adequate documentation about vendors is uploaded in
PeopleSoft (contact info, IDs, etc.)
• ACD-PS to give deadline to all area offices for uploading the manual
vendor list to PS.
SSC System Support
• ACD-PS to contact SSC with a request to add a vendor category (i.e.,
type of services/goods provided by the vendor) field.
• SSC System Support, in coordination with the Procurement Team, if
possible, to enhance the vendor management module in PeopleSoft
by adding a vendor category (i.e., type of services/goods provided
by the vendor) field.
• Once this is developed, the Procurement team will utilize the PS AVL
instead of maintaining the vendor management module in
PeopleSoft by adding a vendor category (i.e., type of services/goods
provided by the vendor) field.
Technical Evaluation Criteria
• ACD-PS to revisit the standard criteria used for all types of procurement in
the technical evaluation.
• Revise the criteria to meet the specific requirements for each type of
transaction, especially for construction contracts (i.e., the vendor's technical
and financial capacity; the equipment required; qualified personnel; etc.).
• Ensure that the criteria are consistently applied per type of transaction.
• IA suggests the following to aid in implementing the recommendations
• Consider reviewing the use of current technical selection criteria that includes
factors such as ‘country of origin’ etc. and how technical points are awarded
• Requirements such as tax ID and commercial registration will have been looked at
during AVL preparation.
User Specifications
• Technical requirements or specifications should be provided by
program user department for each type of goods.
• The specifications should reflect the unique nature of each type of
goods.
• Selection committee to use the specifications at part of the technical
criteria.
• Examples of specifications for construction & rehabilitation are as
follows:
User Specifications Steps..Cont’d
• For construction or rehabilitations, Engineer to prepare a standard
Bills of Quantities (BoQs) which details the technical specifications
and materials for each stage of the project.
• No need for samples since requirements are already specified in the
BoQs.
• Need for preparer of BoQ to be a qualified engineer.
• RFQs to suppliers/contractors is based on CARE’s BoQs.
• BoQ sent to vendors as part of RFQ.
Analysis of Quotations
• Contractors give their prices based on the BoQs, and selection is based on lowest
priced contractor asfter considering the following during evaluation:
• Contractor’s registration with local engineers’ board (if applicable),
• possession of valid construction licenses,
• experience in completing projects of similar magnitude and scope,
• Proposed time to complete the project, correction of defects, warranties etc.
• Once a contractor is selected, CARE will deploy a qualified buildings engineer to
oversee the project to completion.
• Progress (or final) payments may be made to the contractor based on engineer’s
certificates (if agreed in contract).
• CO to consider developing standardized technical specifications or Bills of
Quantities for commonly implemented projects such as classroom constructions.
Special Note from IA:
• Defining technical specifications for each type of goods is a lengthy
process and will require participation of program technical teams to
develop viable technical specifications for each type of goods.
• CO to appoint a special technical team from program to develop
the specifications.
• If need be, a qualified consultant may be hired to assist the
technical team.
• Implementation of the audit recommendations can be spread over
time, but specific milestones to be given.
Contract Management
• ACD-PS to reinforce strict compliance with the vendor’s contract agreement.
• Ensure that appropriate action is taken for any non-compliance/breach of contract by
the vendor.
• PS to send Communication to area offices to ensure they flag vendors who
do not complete contracts as per agreed/contracted timelines. If the delay is
from CARE side, this should be clearly documented and attached to the
payments.
• ACD-PS to develop a formal procurement SoP. The SOP should include but not
be limited to the following:
• A detailed process of how procurement should be conducted (from initiation to
receiving of goods/services) depending on the type of procurement.
Procurement Management ..Cont’d
• Mechanism to properly document various procurement processes
(e.g., vendor visits, quality checking of samples, contacting vendors
desiring committee stage, how to handle disagreement within
committee, etc.) and archive related documents in a centralized
folder.
• Defined roles and responsibilities of each person accountable in the
process (procurement representative, each committee member).
• Once the SOP is established, Program Support Director (or delegate)
to conduct formal training with all area offices to ensure they
understand the process.
Procurement SoP …Cont’d
• Selection Committee to perform due diligence in reviewing
procurement documentation before approval (e.g., check that all bids
were received within deadline, check whether all vendors are in AVL,
confirm that legal documents are valid, etc.).
• ACD-PS to provide instructions about above to committee members at time of
appointment.
• Question procurements that have inadequate documentation and
ensure adequate follow-through to ensure issues are resolved.
• SOP should include but not be limited to the following:
 Procurement Work-flow
• ACD-PS to review current procurement workflow approval requirements and to assess
applicability, adequacy, and continuance. If to be continued, secure proper
documentation of the waiver indicating the justification, duration of the waiver, risk
assessment, and risk mitigation as required by the CI Procurement Policy.
• CARE Yemen’s procurement approval workflow deviation is on the second approver of
threshold levels 1 ($501 – $3,500) and 2 ($3,501 - $25,000), making the CO’s setup less
restrictive compared to the CI Procurement Policy. For PR, 1-3500 is approved by DAM
while CI policy requires Manager/BH. For PR 3501-25000 approval is by area manager
while CI policy requires ACD-P or equivalent.
• For PO approval, 501 – 3,500 CI Policy requires Procurement Manager or Equivalent
approval, while CO practice requires 1 – 3,500 to be approved by Procurement Officer.
On the other hand, for PO within 3,501 – 25,000, CI policy requires ACD or Equivalent
approval, while CO has 3,500 – 25,000 approved by Program Support Manager / Officer.
Procurement Work-flow …Cont’d
• Once the approval workflow is finalized and the waiver is secured, the
Program Support Director to request SSC System Support to reflect
the revised workflow in PeopleSoft.
• Monitor system implementation to ensure Procurement Approval
waiver and PeopleSoft is aligned.

• Recommended Action: either revise the approval levels above or

seek waiver from HQ.
Deactivate Vendors ….etc.
• Deactivate suppliers identified as inactive, duplicates, and resigned
employees, immediately deactivate. Otherwise, ask assistance from
SSC Systems Support Team for batch deactivation.
• ACD-PS to guide Procurement Committee Members and Area
Managers how to strengthen the annual vendor review process by
adding the following criteria during the annual vendor review:
• (1) unique vendors with the same contact information;
• (2) reconciliation of EML versus PS AVL; and
• (3) accuracy of vendor classification.
Deactivation of Vendors
• As a monitoring control, Program Support Director, or delegate to establish a consolidated
tracker of vendors identified for deactivation due to bad performance.
• If possible, coordinate with the SSC System Support that the justification field can be included in the
supplier module when deactivating or updating vendor status. The vendor’s performance should be
considered when the deactivated vendor subsequently participated in the public tender.
• Assign responsibility for preparing the tracker to a specific procurement staff. Provide a
date when the tracker will be available.

• Finance Team to immediately notify Program Support Director when a separated employee
has received their final pay or when a former employee becomes a consultant for the CO so
the latter can deactivate the supplier or update the supplier type in the system, as
applicable.
• Should be done at the time of employee separation as part of clearance. Finance to keep tracker of
separated employees not yet paid final dues.
Deactivation of Vendors
• Finance or Human Resources Team to perform regular (at least
quarterly) reconciliation of active employee master files against the
PS employee payee list. Ensure that separated staff who received final
pay are deactivated from PS and that the supplier type of former
consultants who become consultants are updated.
• ACD-PS to communicate with SSC Financial Control Pillar Manager to
include partially matched POs in its monitoring file shared with the
CO. Roll out the updated “PO_ACCRUAL_CLOSING_OPEN” query once
the Development Team implements the new parameters that capture
partially matched POs.
Vendor Review Actions
• ACD-PS to guide Procurement Committee to establish a monitoring
process or effective follow-through of actions identified during the
annual vendor review process to ensure that necessary actions are
taken in a timely manner.
• Examples:
• What can the committee do if a vendor lacks crucial info in PS?
• What can committee do if there’re duplicate vendor names?
• What can committee do if vendor is also tagged as ‘employee’.
Yemeni Tender Law & +-15%
• Program Support Director to revisit the guidelines used in procurement
evaluation. If applicable, consult with the Government if the Tender Law
is applicable to CARE Yemen.
• If applicable, ensure that the law is consistently applied for all
procurement transactions. Should the +/-15% rule will be used, ensure
the accuracy of the estimated cost to avoid undue disqualification of
vendors.
• If not applicable, the Program Support Director to establish evaluation
criteria that promote fairness in evaluating all participating vendors. The
criteria should be based on the specific requirements for each type of
procurement.
Thought from CO IA
• CO to consider NOT using the 15% rule. Instead, the guiding principle in all
procurement should be fairness, and equal opportunity to all participating
vendors.
• 15% rule leads to elimination of potentially cheaper vendors leading CO to
purchase from high-cost vendors without demonstration of superior quality.
• From our experience, the “estimation price” indicated in the PR has very high
chance of being leaked to some vendors who might be friendly to CARE staff.
So, improving market survey does not eliminate the risk of leaking estimation
price.
• As IA, we view removal of 15% rule as helping to enhance fairness. This also
provides opportunity to adhere to CI principle of “least cost” where attainable.
Use RFQ Functionality in PS
• Procurement Team to utilize RFQ functionality in PeopleSoft, except
when the procurement calls for public advertisements where vendors
sending quotations may not be in the current approved vendor list.
• RFQ in the PS can be used instead of the manual RFQ prepared or in
addition to the detailed manual RFQ or BOQ. While the distribution of
the RFQ is still manual, this will ensure that only vendors in the AVL
are receiving the RFQ.
• ACD-PS to issue memo to all procurement staff requiring them to
only use online RFQ functionality in PS.
RFQ in PeopleSoft …Cont’d
• Area office procurement teams to be socialized on how to use
system RFQ functionality.
Procurement Tracker
• Procurement team to fully utilize the CO online procurement tracker available at:
(https://careyemis.org:89/).
• Ensure that the system is updated for every progress in procurement. Any challenges
during the procurement process should be logged in the system for monitoring.
• ACD-P to issue memo to all BHs, procurement staff and all Aos that going forward, procurement
will only process requests listed in the online procurement plan.
• ACD-PS or designate to also utilize the online procurement tracker by reviewing each
stage of the procurement process to identify bottleneck causes and develop solutions to
address the inefficiencies. Based on the review, establish a procurement processing lead
time and monitor compliance.
• ACD-PS to assign procurement lead time for each type of procurement based on complexity of the
procurement process. For example, tools & materials procurement takes longer that evaluation
consultancies that should take just 2 weeks. Lead times to be communicated to all concerned
parties, especially procurement staff, committee members and BHs.
Procurement Tracker Cont’d
• Program Support Director or designate to remind all staff through a
memo or email communication about the benefit of combining related
PRs, when possible, to increase procurement efficiency.
Other Matters to consider:
• Delayed procurements normally delay program implementation.
These are partly due to:
• Unnecessary or unjustified repeat bidding process
• ACD-PS should scrutinize any request for repeat bidding before
approving.
• Repeat bidding process should be highly discouraged unless
extremely justified.