Section 49, The Public Procurement Act, 2016

(1) A procuring entity shall use the appropriate standardbidding documents specified in the second Schedule. Provided that in exceptional circumstances, the Authority may, on an application by a procuring entity, approve in writing, the usage of other formats or variations to the standard bidding documents. (2) A procuring entity shall provide, in an expeditious and non-discriminatory manner, the bidding documents to all potential bidders that respond to the invitation to bid or, in the case of prequalification, to all bidders that have been prequalified, and the price that may be charged for the bidding documents shall reflect only the cost of printing and distributing the documents. (3) The bidding documents shall inform bidders of– (a) the nature and time frame of the procurement, including, but not limited to the technical specifications or drawings as the case may be, terms of reference, the contractual terms of the procurement, and the manner of entry into force of the contract; (b) bidder qualification requirements if a prequalification procedure was not followed; (c) information as to site visits and pre-bid conferences; (d) instructions for preparation and submission of bids, including the deadline for submission of bids, time and place of bid opening; (e) components to be reflected in the price, the currency or currencies in which the bid price may be stated, and the currency and related exchange rate to be used for comparison of bids; (f) the criteria and methodology for evaluation of bids and the selection of the successful bidder, which shall all be quantified in monetary terms or expressed in the form of pass or fail requirements, if possible, or, where not possible, by relative weights and when considering evaluation criteria, the procuring entity shall consider only the following - (i) the bid price, subject to any margin of preference applied pursuant to section 36; 46 47 Bidding (ii) the cost of operating, maintaining and repairing the goods or works, the time for delivery of the goods, completion of works or provision of the services, the functional characteristics of the goods or works, the terms of payment and of guarantees in respect of the goods, works or services; (iii) the effect that acceptance of a bid would have on the environment, the extent of local content, including local manufacture, labour and materials, in goods, works or services being offered by bidders, the transfer of technology and the development of managerial, scientific and operational skills; (g) the preference, if any, for domestic goods and contractors as the Authority may by statutory instrument prescribe. (h) any grouping of goods, works or services into lots and packages and the manner of evaluation of the lots and packages; (i) whether alternatives to the technical or contractual specifications would be considered and, if so, how those alternatives would be evaluated; (j) if suppliers are permitted to submit bids for only a portion of the goods, works or services to be procured, a description of the portion or portions for which bids may be submitted; (k) the required validity period of bids; (l) the amount and acceptable forms of any required bid, performance or other security; (m) the conditions of contract which will be entered into with the successful bidder; (n) notice of conflict-of-interest restrictions and anti-fraud and corruption rules; (o) the manner in which bidders may obtain review of actions, omissions and decisions of the procuring entity; and, (p) such other matters as the Authority may by statutory instrument prescribe.