19GB5019Q0016_Site_Visit__QA_-_Back-Up_ISP.docx

CONTRACT

FOR US EMBSSAY LIBREVILLE

BACK-UP INTERNET SERVICES

19GB5019Q0016

MINUTES: Site visit – Questions and answers

Site visit was conducted on July 5, 2019 at 0900 at the US Embassy Libreville Multi Purpose Room and concluded at 1030.

Introduction

All attendees were welcomed and Government Representatives introduced

Below is the list of Government Representatives:

The Government is represented by Patrice Kengne, Information Management Officer, Zeze Onivogui and Procurement Agents Judith Abourou.

Discussion of the Solicitation Package

Government explained that this is a firm-fixed price contract. Hence offers cannot contain “ Price To be Determined” items.

The following sections of the solicitation were highlighted:

· SECTION 3 Instructions to offerors Offerors were asked to ensure that they clearly differentiate from the price offer and the technical offer.

Emphasis was made also on the content of the price proposal and the technical proposal

The Offerors are informed that they shall include Defense Base Act (DBA) insurance premium costs covering their employees working on the contract. This is a mandatory requirement for this solicitation. The offeror shall obtain DBA insurance directly from any Department of Labor approved providers at the DOL website at http://www.dol.gov/owcp/dlhwc/lscarrier.htm.

· SECTION 4 – Evaluation factors (Compliance review – technical acceptability - Price evaluation – Responsibility Determination)

· SECTION 5 – Representations & Certifications All contractors were reminded that they have to be registered in the SAM (System for Award Management) Database https://www.sam.gov prior to contract award pursuant to FAR provision 52.204-7. Therefore propective offerors are encouraged to register prior to the submittal of quotations / proposals.

The COR emphasized on the fact that this is a back-up internet service different from what we already have with Service Provider Gabon Telecom. Hence, given that the main contract is mainly on SAT 3, we recommend that the vendors provide back-up services on other routes.

Questions:

The attached questions were asked during the conference or prior to the conference:

1- Are we allowed to ask questions even after this meeting?

Yes, You may ask questions to us until July 15, 2019 at 1200 p.m. This will allow us sufficient time to respond and post. All potential offerors shall have the same information available.

2- As far as Specifications are concerned, could you tell us if the fiber shall be underground from the source.

We highly recommend it to be underground cables within Embassy perimeters (refer to paragraph “Internet Services Quality” of the scope of work, in the continuation to SF-1449). Please take note that we made sure that everything (cabling) is underground. There is already a route to access the Embassy perimeters for that purpose.

We do have a telecom room for our electricity and internet that can be made available to vendors for that purpose. It is situated in the embassy perimeter.

3- What are the specifications for the terminal equipment?

The vendor shall have his own router in our closest perimeter for monitoring purposes.

We would like to remind you that the criteria on redundancy is very important and this must be clearly defined in a diagram. The diagram should speak for itself and should not leave room for uncertainty. Amongst others, this is one essential point of the technical acceptability of your offer (refer to paragraph “Network Devices” of the scope of work in the Continuation to SF-1449).

4- How many IP addresses are necessary?

Please provide 16, as per scope of work (Refer to paragraph “Network Identification” of the scope of work in continuation to SF-1449).

5- Who is our POC, is it the IRM Office or the Contracting Team?

Please note that your POC during the solicitation phase is exclusively the Contracting Team (Contracting Officer and the Procurement Agent). Once the Contract is awarded, the Contracting Officer Representative from IRM Office will become the main POC.

Contractors are reminded that the Contracting Officer remains the sole officer authorized to award, modify or cancel an award (Refer to DOSAR 652.242-70 Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) (Aug 1999) in the Addendum to Contract Clauses).

Furthermore, Contractors shall also provide their POCs as indicated in the solicitation and the related attachment - Service Level Agreement (SLA) (Refer to paragraph “Service Support and Contingencies” of the scope of work in the continuation to SF-1449).

6- Should all POC be available for 24/7? For instance, do you require that the Key Account Manager be available for 24/7?

We require to have the technicians and certainly their Supervisor. For instance, your NOC shall be available 24/7 (Refer to paragraph “Service Support and Contingencies” of the scope of work in the continuation to SF-1449).

7- What is the minimum response time?

The minimum response time is 3 hours and this depends on the severity of the incident. Please refer to the SLA for more details“(Refer to Attachment 1 Service Level Agreement, 5. Support Service Levels”).

8- Following your response to the previous questions. They are instances where this becomes almost impossible. For example, the incident the mobile operator had with their network when road constructions affected their equipment two months ago could not be resolved within that minimum response time. This was definitely an emergency. What do we do in these situations.

To the maximum extent practicable, you shall meet the SLA requirements. We do consider situations case per case and we do understand when something is inevitable. However, you must not fail to communicate with us by all means possible. (“Refer to Attachment 1 Service Level Agreement, 3.1 Technical Fault Reporting Procedure)

9- How do we submit our offers? Should it be hand delivered or is an email sufficient?

We recommend hand delivery to Post in sealed enveloped labelled “Quotation Enclosed”. It is also possible to submit your offer by email, especially if you are not in Gabon.

10- Can a company bid if it has not attended the site visit?

Any registered and legal company can bid. The site visit gives a good idea to all bidders of the extent of work to be done under this contract and this is why it is in the best interest of a Company to attend it.

During the Conference we explained that we could provide assistance, if needed for the SAM registration.

Hence, Contractors may contact Procurement Agent Judith Abourou for that purpose. Registration is free. It is true that there are some website offering their services for the registration, but the Government is not responsible of these sites.

We recommend that you first try on your own using guidance in the following link:

· USAID website has DUNS instructions in other languages (french, Portuguese) (https://usaidlearninglab.org/library/doing-business-usaid-duns-and-sam-systems-101

If you still have some difficulties with the registration process, revert to us. This is done in three steps as below described:

Step 1 – Get a DUNS Number

· Before a company can register in SAM, the vendor must first get a DUNS Number.

· The vendor can request their DUNS number for free from this website: http://fedgov.dnb.com/webform

Step 2 – Get an NCAGE Code

· An NCAGE is required for all foreign entities otherwise the registration will be considered incomplete.

· Note vendor to carefully enter the company address in DUNS because this will be used for NCAGE and SAM. We advise that you copy and paste the information from one system to the other one. The best practice is to copy all your information on a Word document and simply paste it in the different systems.

· The address has to be a street address containing no special characters.

· The vendor can submit their request for an NCAGE Code by going to the NATO Support Activity (NSPA) NCAGE Request Tool at https://eportal.nspa.nato.int/AC135Public/scage/CageList.aspx

· The vendor’s information should be entered into the NCAGE system exactly as it is reflected in DUNS and Bradstreet because this could hold up the vendor’s SAM Registration.

· After the vendor requests the NCAGE code, the vendor will have to search BINCS to see if their information has been received

· Some country’s may take several weeks for the information to be sent to BINCS. We noted that for Gabon, it takes 48 to 72 hours.

· Once the information has been received by BINCS the vendor can now start the registration process for SAM

· The legal business name and physical address MUST be exactly the same in all systems: DUNS, NCAGE and SAM.

Step 3 – Register in SAM

· To start your registration in SAM go to www.sam.gov .

· You need to have all the necessary information regarding your company (number of employees, your average income, key contact for SAM, etc…).

· SAM imports the DUNS information and compares it to the information in BINCS. If the information is not exactly the same, the vendor will not be able to register in SAM.

Please note that there is an update to the registration process. You must submit a notarized letter. Please refer to the attachment B to this document for this purpose.

For further help you can send an email to AbourouJH@state.gov .