ITO for IAF USADF FS Audit (FINAL).pdf

United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Office of Inspector General (OIG)

Instructions to Offerors (ITO)

U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) and

Inter-American Foundation (IAF) Audits of Financial Statements

Solicitation #:72001G24R00004

I. General Instructions

A. Proposal Submission Overview

1. Offers shall be submitted by closing date and time noted on the cover of the solicitation. Submission via email is required; no hard copy delivery will be accepted. Email submissions shall be sent to Scott Ferrante at sferrante@usaid.gov and Kiaira Stallworth at kstallworth@usaid.gov.

2. Offerors shall prepare a proposal as described below. Please ensure that the technical and price proposals, are sent electronically, are separate files and clearly identified as such. Offerors must submit all elements of the technical proposal in PDF format. Offerors must submit all elements of the price proposal in Microsoft Excel format. All elements of the price proposal

(specifically the explanatory/narrative section) that involve text must be submitted in PDF format. Excel spreadsheets must have formulas included.

3. In case of any disagreement or discrepancies between the terms and conditions of this RFP and the FAR, the latter shall prevail.

4. The Offeror shall follow the instructions contained in this RFP and supply all information and signatures/certifications, as required. Failure to furnish all information requested may disqualify proposal.

5. The Offeror must set forth full, accurate and complete information as required by this RFP. The penalty for making false statements to the Government is prescribed in 18 U.S.C. 1001.

6. USAID/OIG reserves the right to perform a pre-award survey which may include, but is not limited to: (1) interviews with individuals to establish their ability to perform contract duties under the project conditions; (2) a review of the Offeror’s financial condition, business and personnel procedures, etc.; and mailto:sferrante@usaid.gov mailto:kstallworth@usaid.gov

(3) site visits to the Offeror’s institution.

7. The request for proposal for which these instructions are written is written in

Uniform Contract Format described in Federal Acquisition regulations (FAR) section 15.204. The Offerors are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the Uniform Contract Format. This will facilitate their understanding of the terms and conditions of this solicitation, the instructions which follow, and the source selection process.

8. If an Offeror does not understand these instructions, then they should write to

Scott Ferrante at sferrante@usaid.gov and Kiaira Stallworth at kstallworth@usaid.gov for clarification no later than the date and time specified in the due date for questions in the SAM.gov posting.

9. The US Government is not obligated to make an award or pay for any costs incurred by the Offeror in preparation of a proposal in response hereto.

II. Technical Proposal

A. Cover Sheet

Offerors must include the following on its proposal cover sheet:

1. The solicitation number and title;

2. Company name, address, contact information, and any proposed sub-contractor or partner organization;

3. Company point of contact(s): name, specify name(s) of those authorized to negotiate with the Government on behalf of company, and for each, include phone number, fax number, email address, and physical address; and

4. Statement of the Offeror’s (and any proposed subcontractor’s) DUNS number, TINS ID and if applicable the company’s GSA Multiple Award Schedule contract number.

5. Statement of Independence from Agencies – Clearly state whether or not the company is independent from IAF & ADF. Specifically, the offeror is required to affirm whether or not the company is independent from the agencies, including a statement that the company (1) is free from personal and external impairments to independence from IAF

& ADF (2) is organizationally independent, and (3) intends to maintain its independence in fact, attitude, and appearance throughout the period of performance of the statement of work. In addition, if any impairment(s) exists and/or are foreseen, mailto:sferrante@usaid.gov mailto:kstallworth@usaid.gov the proposals must explicitly state the nature of such impairment(s).

6. Independent Public Accounting Firm - The offeror must provide evidence that the firm is a licensed certified public accounting firm.

7. Continuing Professional Education – The offer must provide certification that all auditors working on each call has completed 80 hours of CPE in a two-year period with at least 20 hours being completed in any 1-year of the 2-year period.

B. Technical Evaluation Factors

To assess the best value for USAID OIG, the technical evaluation team will conduct a formal technical evaluation. Each member of the technical evaluation team will perform an independent evaluation of the proposals. The team members will then meet to discuss each proposal and develop a team consensus as to the qualification of each offeror based on the following five factors.

1. Technical Approach – This section of the proposal must describe the offeror’s overall and specific technical approach, along with their understanding of the specific issues and risks relating to each of the separate tasks. The technical approach should reflect the offeror’s understanding of GAO FAM and other audit guidance and standards and present their audit approach and methodology for the account balances. In addition, the offerors must discuss how their technical approach will be tailored to meet the due dates. This section must also include a plan for auditing and reporting on the financial statements.

2. Qualifications of Proposed Staff – This section of the proposal must include the resumes of all proposed contractor and subcontractor staff (both “key personnel” and general staff) for performing the audits described in Section A.5. Scope of

Work and A.8. Requirements for Staffing in the Statement of Work.

Resumes must include the proposed staffs' experience, education (formal or informal) and certifications, related to the experience requirements described in

Section A.5. Scope of Work in the Statement of Work. For this section of the proposal, the offer must clearly indicate on each resume submitted whether the individual is being offered as “key personnel” or “general staff” position. Your proposal will be evaluated according to the criteria described herein for “key personnel” and general “staff.”

3. Contractor’s Past Performance – This section of the proposal must describe the company’s past work experience in performing work described in Section A.5.

Scope of Work in the Statement of Work, specifically federal financial statement audits done pursuant to GCCA, GMRA and the CFO Act. The description must be no more than two (2) pages in length (with 1-inch margins), single-sided, and single- spaced.

Offerors shall submit four different contracts (including Federal, State, and/or local Government) that your firm was awarded within the past five years that demonstrates your ability to perform the work identified in the statement of work.

Each reference must be separately identified and include the following information: referenced firm name, up to two current points of contacts who are capable of providing reference information with respect to your firms performance, current telephone numbers for each point of contact, project name, address of reference firm, facsimile number of reference firm, a brief description of the work performed, the dollar amount of the contract, the number of years of contract, and any problems encountered to include the offerors corrective action.

USAID OIG recommends that you alert the contacts that their names have been submitted and that they are authorized to provide performance information concerning the listed contracts if and when USAID OIG requests.

USAID/OIG may contact two of the references provided by the offeror and other sources of information, including, but not limited to: other government agencies, better business bureaus published media, and electronic data bases to verify at a minimum:

• That the offeror was capable, efficient, and effective.

• That the offerors performance conformed to the terms and conditions of the contract.

• That the offeror was reasonable and cooperative during the performance.

• That the offeror was committed to customer satisfaction.

• That the offeror performed work similar to that which is described in this solicitation.

An offeror shall be given the opportunity of responding to information obtained which adversely affects the technical rating of this factor, if the proposal as a whole is acceptable. This opportunity to respond shall be considered a “clarification” only and will not be considered as “negotiation” or “discussion.”

4. Description of System of Quality Control – For this section of the proposal, the offeror must describe in detail the contractor’s (and subcontractor’s if applicable) internal quality controls over audit planning, fieldwork, and reporting that will be followed for the audit to ensure all work is performed in accordance with U.S.

Government Accountability Office’s Government Auditing Standards. The offeror will be evaluated on the extent to which its description of the system of quality control may have a positive or negative outcome on the audit objectives.

5. Peer Review – The offeror must provide its most recent peer review report and, if applicable, the related letter of comments as well as the offeror’s response to those comments. The offeror must also provide the aforementioned information for its subcontractor, if proposed. The comments will be evaluated on the extent to which they provide positive or negative considerations attributed to the contractor's competency.

C. Technical Proposal Evaluation Procedure

1. The Government intends to evaluate offerors in accordance with the instructions outlined in this document and select as contract holder one responsible offeror whose proposal represents the overall best value to the U.S. Government.

2. The technical information submitted will be evaluated by a technical evaluation committee (TEC) using the technical criteria shown below. The evaluation committee may include industry experts who are not employees of the Federal

Government.

3. This procurement utilizes the best value award process set forth in FAR 15.215-1. If the Contracting Officer determines that competing technical proposals are essentially equal, cost/price factors may become the determining factor in source selection.

Conversely, if the Contracting Officer determines that competing cost/price proposals are essentially equal, technical factors may become the determining factor in source selection. Further, the Contracting Officer may award to a higher priced

Offeror if a determination is made that the higher technical evaluation of that Offeror merits the additional cost/price.

D. Best Value Determination

The FAR defines best value as the expected outcome of an acquisition that, in the government’s estimation, provides the greatest overall benefit in response to the requirement (FAR 2.101).

For this solicitation, under best value source selection, non-price evaluation factors, when combined, are significantly more important than price. However, an offeror will not be selected for award on the basis of superior capability without consideration of the price.

To select the winning offeror, USAID OIG will rank offerors from best to worst by making paired comparisons, trading off the marginal differences in capability and price.

If one offeror has both the better capability and the lower price, then that offeror will be the better value. If one offeror has the better capability and the higher price, then the technical evaluation panel will decide whether the marginal difference in capability is worth the marginal difference in price. If the technical evaluation panel considers the better capability to be worth the higher price, then the more capable, higher-priced offeror will be the better value. If not, then the less capable, lower- priced offeror will be the better value. If more than two proposals are received, the technical evaluation panel will continue to make paired comparisons until he or she has decided which offeror represents the best value.

III. Price Proposal

The offeror shall submit proposed pricing for each contract line item shown in

Attachment II – USADF & IAF Price Sheet. The offeror must propose fully burdened labor rates, level of effort (hours), and total price for each year for the entire period of performance of this contract (including international work), as specified in Section

A.13. Period of Performance in the Statement of Work.

The Government will evaluate offers for award purposes by adding the total price for all options to the total price for the base requirement. The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable if the option prices are significantly unbalanced.

Evaluation of options shall not obligate the Government to exercise the option(s).