USAID Government Accountability Initiative (GAI)
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFP)*Please see attachment for the full RFP document.
Title
Post Mortem Analysis of Corruption Cases
RFP Number
GAI-RFP-004
Contracting Authority
Checchi and Company Consulting, Inc. Representative Office
Belgrade
The USAID Serbia Government Accountability Initiative, implemented by Checchi and Company Consulting, Inc., is requesting proposals for a comprehensive `post-mortem` analysis of past corruption cases in Serbia, to provide feedback to the specialized anti-corruption courts and public prosecutors’ offices and information to GAI in development of technical assistance to build the capacity and improve the performance of courts and public prosecutors’ offices.
Date Published
April 12, 2019
Submission Deadline
April 30, 2019
Point of Contact
Name: Uroš Čuljković
Government Accountability Initiative
Email: uculjkovic@checchiconsulting.com
Tel: 011 41 45 880
Background
The Government Accountability Initiative (GAI) is a four year, USAID-funded activity, aimed at strengthening capacities and connections of key Serbian stakeholders to increase government accountability at the national and local levels. The project was awarded in February 2018, and is implemented by Checchi and Company Consulting, Inc.
Under Component 3 (Adjudication of Corruption Cases), GAI supports the Supreme Court of Cassation (SCC), Republic Public Prosecutor’s Office (RPPO), Ministry of Justice (MOJ), and specialized anti-corruption court units and prosecutors’ offices.
Under Component 3, GAI will:
The Law on Organization and Jurisdiction of State Organs in Fight against Organized Crime, Corruption and Terrorism Financing (hereinafter: Law on Organized Crime and Corruption) created four specialized anti-corruption court units and four Higher Courts in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš and Kraljevo, and related prosecution and investigation task forces. The adoption of the Law was followed by the amendments to the Criminal Code. Twenty-six criminal offenses related to corruption were amended or introduced in the legal system. The new court units began operation on schedule in March 2018, with training and technical support provided by donors.
With the aim to understand which strategies are most successful in prosecuting and adjudicating corruption cases in Serbia, and to define common shortfalls, the selected contractor will develop a comprehensive, learning-oriented, post-mortem analysis of corruption cases based on a pre-selected catalogue of criminal offences from the Serbian Criminal Code.
In order to support improvement in successful prosecution and adjudication of corruption cases, the analysis shall identify areas of weakness in case preparation, prosecution, and adjudication. The process shall be clearly focused on constructive institutional and procedural improvements, and not on finding fault. Results of a post-mortem will feed back into GAI support for individual institutions such as specialized anti-corruption courts and for the creation of an electronic register of corruption cases (ERCC).
The analysis will be presented to government representatives and the general public.
Purpose and Objective
GAI seeks to procure the services of an independent and credible research organization, consultancy firm, or group of consultants with a proven trackrecordofconductingqualityanalysis of litigation strategy. The main purposeofthiscontractisto determine where cases have failed or stalled, by analyzing the court decisions in first instance cases for two periods:
Eligibility
Offerors must have:
Questions and Clarifications
All questions and requests for clarification regarding this RFP should be submitted electronically to GAI-Belgrade@checchiconsulting.com, no later than April 17, 2019.
No phone calls or in-person inquiries will be entertained.
All correspondence must provide reference to the RFP number (in the subject).
Questions and clarifications that may be of interest to other bidders, will be circulated to all potential bidders/interested parties. For this purpose, all prospective bidders who doesn’t have questions or requests for clarification regarding the RFP, but wants to be informed about the clarification and answers that would be provided to other bidders upon their request, should submit their email to GAI-Belgrade@checchiconsulting.com.
Any verbal information received from a Checchi employee or any other entity shall not constitute an official response to any questions regarding this RFP.
Answers to all questions and request for clarification would be submitted to all bidders by Friday April 19 April.
Submission of Proposals
Proposals should be submitted electronically to the GAI Project Office in Belgrade, Serbia, to the email address: GAI-Belgrade@checchiconsulting.com, no later than April 30, 2019, 5 p.m. (CET). Bidders should refer to the RFP number (in the subject line of the email). Any proposals that arrive after this time will be considered at Checchi’s discretion.
Content of the Proposals
Proposal must include:
Technical Proposal Form: proposed technical approach, relevant previous experience of the organization in the field and professional/organizational capacities (including the key project team members, such as the Project Manager and other experts deemed necessary to perform the post mortem. The Technical Proposal should also include schedule of activities (Annex II).
Financial Proposal Form: costs presented using provided template in Excel: (Annex III).
Proposal Submission Form (Annex IV).
Selection Criteria for Award
Proposals will be ranked based on the criteria given in the Evaluation table below:
Table 1 - Evaluation tableNo.
Evaluated Area of Proposal Maximum Points
1
Technical proposal
Total 70
1.1
Quality of Methodology
- gathering of relevant data
- database filtering and processing
- feasibility of the sequence of activities and the time frame
30
1.2
Previous relevant experience on a similar project in the region/country
20
1.3
Organizational capacities and qualifications
20
2
Cost
Total 30
Total Points
100
Scope of Work
Purpose and Objectives
The contract will entail provision of the following services:
Conduct a comprehensive learning-oriented analysis of selected corruption cases to provide information to specialized anti-corruption courts and public prosecutors’ offices and other interlocutors (MOJ, Supreme Court, Republic Prosecutor’s Office) on areas for capacity building and improvement.
The proposed methodology should include the following:
From the judgments and, case files, the following information, at a minimum, should be examined in order to identify patterns:
The sample of cases should be as representative as possible and disaggregated by appellate regions and designated basic and higher courts in the territories in which specialized anti-corruption departments were established.
In part of the analysis related to court decisions passed after March 1, 2018, the analysis shall include approximately 10 percent of all final cases decided in the four specialized A/C units for the selected set of criminal offences and for the specified period of time (March 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019).
The following information, at a minimum, should be collected:
From the judgements and case files for sample cases, the following information, at a minimum, should be examined in order to identify patterns:
The overall representative sample, for the total of both groups of cases, should not exceed 250 cases.
The analysis will focus on detection of trends and patterns in prosecuting criminal offences with elements of corruption in the indicated periods.
At a minimum, the prosecutorial strategies will be assessed through following indicators:
For the public prosecution:
For the judiciary:
The offerors may suggest additional indicators or modification of the existing ones.
The proposed set of criminal offences for the analysis and comparison is the following: abuse of official position (Art. 359 Criminal Code), embezzlement (Art. 364), misfeasance (Art. 361), taking bribe (Art. 367), giving bribe (Art. 368), commercial fraud (Art. 223), abuse of position of a responsible person (Art. 227) and misfeasance in public procurement (Art. 228).
Tasks and Methodology
The selected offeror must describe how it will address the requirements of this SoW; providing a detailed description of the essential performance characteristics, reporting and quality assurance mechanisms that will be put in place, while demonstrating that the proposed methodology will be appropriate to the local conditions and context of the work.
Deliverables
The following are main expected deliverables. The offerors may suggest additional or interim deliverables based on proposed methodology.
Expected Duration
Estimated start date: May 20, 2019.
Estimated end date: September 20, 2019.
ANNEX IITechnical Submission Form
Description of the analysis with proposed methodological approach to collection of court decisions for the analysis (up to two pages) should be provided. Include details on the proposed sampling methodology of court cases. A maximum of 250 cases should be sampled.
Previous experience conducting similar types of analysis, outlined in Annex 1, Scope of Work
Title of the project
Time of the implementation
Main activities
Source of funding/donor
Link to project description/results/reference
Please, provide information on similar analysis conducted in previous 5 years. Add rows as necessary.
3. Organizational capacities and qualificationsPlease, provide information for following positions and personnel responsible for conducting the analysis. For the positions 1, 2 and 3, please provide CVs.
3.1 Proposed Core TeamInformation about the project team that will be responsible for organization and implementation of activities, including technical experts. Please insert fields as appropriate depending on the composition of the team. Please provide CVs for all listed positions.
The level of expertise should include legal and case law analysis and data collection.
Position1. Project Manager
Name and surname
Professional background (occupation, degree of education)
Number of years of professional experience
Position 2. …
Name and surname
Professional background (occupation, degree of education)
Number of years of professional experience
Position 3. …
Name and surname
Professional background (occupation, degree of education)
Number of years of professional experience
ANNEX III
Financial Submission Form
For Financial Submission Form (detailed budget proposal) please use separate excel form using the proposed budget template below.
Please break down budget for ALL estimated types of costs in USD.
USAID GAI RFP-004 FINANCIAL PROPOSAL
PROPOSAL COST SUMMARY
Labor costs
Travel costs
Etc.
# of consultants
# of days per consultant
Daily rate per consultant (in USD)
Total cost (USD)
Dear Sir/Madam:
Proposal Submission Form
[Please insert logo of your organization/company]
We, the undersigned, hereby offer to provide professional services for GAI with the aim to develop a comprehensive learning-oriented post-mortem analysis of corruption cases for a selected set of criminal offences in accordance with your Request for Proposal. We are hereby submitting our Proposal, which includes the Technical Submission Form and Financial Submission Form.
We hereby declare that:
We confirm that we have read, understood and hereby accept the Terms of Reference describing the duties and responsibilities required of us in this RFP.
We fully understand and recognize that GAI is not bound to accept this proposal, that we shall bear all costs associated with its preparation and submission, and that GAI will in no case be responsible or liable for those costs, regardless of the conduct or outcome of the evaluation.
Sincerely,
Authorized Signature:
Name and Title of Signatory: Name of Firm:
Contact Details: