ALL members of the Technical and Financial Evaluation Committee that presides and evaluates any government tenders and bids will have to sign an Oath of Confidentiality before participating in TFEC meetings, according to the National Procurement Commission (NPC).
TFEC is a very important committee that comprise of key stakeholders concerning a government project and undertakes technical and financial evaluation and assessment on all tender documents and bids submitted for that particular project and makes recommendation to the NPC board to award contract to the successful bidder.
The TFEC members comprised of representatives from the State Solicitor, Works Department, Finance Department, NPC and other agencies of State responsible for a particular project.
The TFEC members who convened for the very first TFEC meeting for this year to evaluate tenders of a particularly Government project have signed their Oath of Confidentiality witnessed by NPC chief executive officer Mr Simon Bole and a Commissioner of Oath.
“This is our first TFEC meeting for this year and all TFEC members have signed the oath of confidentiality to protect the integrity and confidentiality of the Government tender evaluation processes,” Mr Bole said.
Mr Bole said the oath was developed based on past experiences where confidential information have been released to the public illegally affecting Government tender and procurement processes.
“At some instances in the past, bidders have come to us with information on tender and evaluation process of their bids which they are not supposed to know at this stage until all tender process were completed.
“These gives us the idea that people who are supposed to protect the confidentiality of information during tender processes were not doing so and have leaked information illegally.
“Thus, we have come up with this oath to protect the integrity of the TFEC evaluation process so members become personally responsible and that is fundamental to deliver a very transparent and accountable government procurement and tender evaluation processes,” Mr Bole said.
He said the signing of the oath has now makes the TFEC members become more responsible of their actions towards protecting the confidentiality of tender information when it’s still under evaluation and assessment stages.
“We have now started with the first TFEC meeting for this year and all other TFEC meetings for any other government projects will do the same,” Mr Bole said.