Section 58, The Public Procurement Act, 2016

(1) Where a procurement is to be done by a two- stagebidding, the bidding documents shall, in the first stage, require bidders to submit initial bids without a bid price, and may solicit initial proposals relating to the technical, quality or other characteristics of the goods, works or services, as well as to contractual terms and conditions of the proposed contract, and, where relevant, the professional and technical competence and qualifications of the bidders. (2) The procuring entity may engage in discussion with any or all bidders whose proposals satisfy the conditions set forth in the bidding documents with a view to understanding the proposals or to indicate changes required to make them acceptable and to seek the bidder’s willingness to make such changes and the minutes of these discussions shall form part of the procurement records. (3) At the end of the first stage, the procuring entity may– (a) reject those bids which do not, and cannot be changed to meet the basic requirements, minimum performance, or required completion time or have any other weakness which makes the bid substantially non responsive; (b) modify the technical specifications, evaluation criteria, and contract conditions, while seeking to maximise competition and articulate appropriate evaluation methodology. (4) In the second stage, the procuring entity shall invite bidders whose bids have not been rejected to submit final bids with prices responsive to the revised bidding documents. (5) A bidder, not wishing to submit a final bid, may withdraw from the bidding processes without forfeiting any bid security that the bidder may have been required to provide, and the final bids shall be evaluated and compared in accordance with the criteria and methodology included in the revised bidding documents. (6) The procedures for bidding specified in section 57 shall apply to two-stage bidding processes, except to the extent they are modified by this section.