Conducting an assessment of public procurement processes in departments of Poltava city administration 

General background

The EU Anti-Corruption Initiative in Ukraine (EUACI) is the European Union’s technical support program in the area of anti-corruption in Ukraine, co-funded and implemented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Denmark. The overall objective of the EUACI is to achieve significant progress in preventing and countering corruption, ensuring the coherence and systemic anti-corruption activities of state and local self-government bodies, and to empower civil society and citizens to contribute to the combatting of corruption, as well as the proper process of Ukraine’s post-war recovery. The program runs till April 2027.

This assignment concerns the EUACI’s support of Integrity Cities (Component 3). The component aligns with the government’s encouragement of e-government functions by using ICT to improve government efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, and accountability at all levels.

It is in this context that the EUACI is seeking a Consultant (Consulting firm or a consortium of organizations) that can work closely with the EUACI and its partner city to deliver the comprehensive evaluation and procurement monitoring within the Department of Housing and Communal Service, the Department of Capital Construction, Department of education of the Poltava City Council, and provide practical recommendations on how to tackle the identified managerial and integrity risks.

These Terms of Reference (ToR) give more details about the assignment.

Objective

The goal is to identify possible corruption risks and violations in local regulations during the process of public procurement of works and services in the Department of Housing and Communal Service, the Department of Capital Construction and the Department of Education of the Poltava City Council.

Scope of work

The scope of work includes all activities necessary to ensure the achievement of the above objective, including, but not necessarily limited to

Kick-Off

1) Present the work plan, assignment implementation strategy, and considerations to EUACI Component Team during the Kick-Off meeting.

2) Review of Current Procurement Practices at the Department of Housing and Communal Service, the Department of Capital Construction, Department of Education of the Poltava City Council

a. Conducting a comprehensive analysis of procurements works and services announced by the departments through the electronic public procurement system Prozorro for September 2024 and July 2025, presentation of a report with consolidated information on procurements by the announced cost, subject of the procurement, counterparties, as well as information on possible violations of the law when announcing such procurements and detected corruption risks;

b. Conducting an analysis of agreements for the purchase of works and services concluded by the departments in September 2024 and July 2025, presentation of a report with consolidated information on the results of the analysis of contracts for price compliance with the market level, the presence of essential conditions and other necessary conditions of the contract, quality and the effectiveness of conducting a preliminary market analysis before concluding an agreement, etc.;

c. Compilation of analytical reports for separate agreements with information on the results of the analysis of price compliance with the market level, the presence of essential conditions and other necessary conditions of the contract, the quality and objectivity of the preliminary market analysis before concluding the agreement, information about the counterparty, etc.;

d. Develop a set of clear and actionable recommendations for improving the public procurement process at the, eliminating identified corruption risks.

e. Create draft normative legal acts and relevant orders that regulate the procurement sphere and the set of samples of contracts, documents, and procedure updates.

3) Conduct offline training for employees of the Department of Housing and Communal Services, the Department of Capital Construction, the Department of Education and other structural units of the Poltava City Council involved in procurement. The purpose of the training is to update the knowledge of participants in the field of procurement in accordance with the identified shortcomings in the procedures. The number of training participants is at least 15 people.

The Service provider will be responsible for sending a link to the on-line Google form for training feedback that will be provided by the EUACI. The on-line form is to be completed by training participants immediately after the training, and not later than 5 days from training date. The Service provider should send the reminder (s) to participants during these 5 days if the response rate is lower than 82%. The EUACI hired external MEAL team will conduct 6 months post training assessment with a limited sample of training participants to evaluate how they apply skills obtained at the training in the longer-term perspective.

4) Consulting about the corruption risks in procurement procedures for the Poltava city administration during the project implementation.

The consultant must conduct at least three visits to work with key stakeholders and conducting the training and presentation of the results in the Poltava City Council.

Deliverables

The Deliverables are presented below in Table 1 with a tentative schedule.

All results are expected to be provided in Ukrainian unless otherwise agreed. Electronic copies are sent by email to the particular EUACI contact person.

Table 1: Summary of deliverables/outputs and the tentative timeline for delivery.

The timelines indicated in the table above are indicative. The Consultant will reflect on and update the timelines for different activities while preparing and updating the Consultant’s work plan. During the Kick-Off meeting with the EUACI Component Team, the Consultant’s work plan will be discussed, including the proposed timeline for the different activities and the submission of deliverables.

Qualifications

The assignment described above must be completed by a qualified procurement expert team.

The Consultant’s core team shall include the following profiles: 

• One Team Leader responsible for overseeing and quality assuring the entire process, the processing and analysis of collected data, and the quality of key deliverables.
• Infrastructure Procurement Experts with experience in public procurement, especially in the sphere of household works and infrastructure
• Procurement Lawyer with deep knowledge of Ukrainian legislation on local government

TEAM LEADER REQUIREMENTS

General qualifications 

• Master’s degree or equivalent in public administration, law, finances, or another related field that demonstrates the ability to perform the duties and responsibilities as described.
• Proven track record (no fewer than 5 years) of managing teams in public or private procurement for legal entities (preferably state or municipally owned) over the past 10 years. 

Adequacy of the Team Leader 

• A track record of a minimum of one earlier assignment as Team Leader for procurement assessments and business processes reviews for legal entities (preferably state or municipally owned) that range from project design, data collection, data analysis and presentation, and writing and presentation of reports

Experience in the region and language 

• Relevant working experience in the region.
• Fluency in Ukrainian and English.

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE PROCUREMENT LAWYER: 

General qualifications

• Master’s degree in law or a similar field.
• Proven expertise in state governance is an asset 
• Proven track record (no fewer than 5 years) of working in teams that conduct public procurement for legal entities (preferably state or municipally-owned).

Adequacy for the assignment

• A minimum of two recent assignments from projects of a similar nature within the past three years.

Experience in the region and language 

• Relevant working experience in the region.
• Fluency in Ukrainian.

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE INFRASTRUCTURE PROCUREMENT EXPERTS

General qualifications

• Minimum of Bachelor’s degree in accounting, procurement, or business management, law, or finance.
• 5+ years of experience as a procurement expert or in a similar position that provides advice to SOEs or local authorities or work at SOEs or local authorities at the procurement managerial position with procurement of services for a state or communal infrastructure.

Adequacy for the assignment

• A minimum of 3 recent assignments from projects of a similar nature within the past three years.

Experience in the region and language

• Relevant working experience in the region.
• Fluency in Ukrainian.

Budget, timeframe, and location

The maximum budget available for this assignment is up to EUR 16 000. 

This amount includes subsistence allowance for fieldwork in the partner city as well as costs related to local travel, and other project-related costs such as for example printing.

The expected duration of the assignment is 10 weeks, with a tentative start on the July 2025 and completion on the September 2025.

The supplier may request an advance payment of up to 30% of the total cost after signing the contract, and the rest 70% as a post-payment after fulfilment of the contract.

Reporting and management 

The performance of the Contractor will be judged upon reaching the purpose of this contract as well as obtaining its results, as indicated in the section “Objective” and “Deliverables” herein respectively. Moreover, the performance of the Contractor will be judged upon the successful implementation of all the specific activities indicated in Section “Scope of work” of this document

By signing the contract, the Consultant agrees to hold in trust and confidence any information or documents (“confidential information”) disclosed to the Consultant or discovered by the Consultant or prepared by the Consultant in the course of or as a result of the implementation of the contract, and agrees that it shall be used only for the contract implementation and shall not be disclosed to any third party. The Consultant also agrees not to retain copies of any written information or prototypes in its archive and for its use.

How to apply

The deadline for submitting the proposal is 16 June, 18.00 Kyiv time.

The proposals with:

1) Financial offer, including the level of fees for all involved staff; (Appendix 2)

2) methodology of project implementation; (Appendix 1)

3) CV(s) of the tender participant(s)

If these documents are not submitted in line with the request above, the bid will not be considered.

The proposal shall include the aforementioned information and should be submitted within the above deadline to [email protected] cc to [email protected] indicating the subject line: “Procurement Evaluation in Poltava”. 

You will receive an auto-reply from the [email protected] mailbox when the offer has been received. If you do not receive an auto-reply, your offer was not received and you should contact the EUACI by phone.

Bidding language: English.

Any clarification questions regarding the terms of reference should be addressed to [email protected], not later than 11 July, 23:59 Kyiv time.

Evaluation criteria

More details can be found here.