Clarification Issued 9/01/2017: Interested firms may apply and be selected for both Corporate Development Programme and Project Implementation Unit Support assignments, however would be expected to provide different teams of experts.
Executing Agency (Client): The Unitary Enterprise Lida GUP JKH
The Client Contact Person:
Mr. Evgeniy Bertsevich
Lida city unitary enterprise
Pobedy street 53, Lida, 231300, Republic of Belarus
E-mail: evgeniy.bertsevich@gmail.com
Copy: gkh-2000@mail.ru
Tel: +375 44 7744503
Fax: +375 154 644409
The EBRD Contact Person:
Larissa Gosling
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
One Exchange Square
London EC2A 2JN
E-mail: goslingl@ebrd.com
Tel: + 44 20 7338 6338
Fax: +44 20 7338 7451
Project Description:
The Unitary Enterprise Lida GUP JKH (the “Company”) supported by the Government of Belarus (the “Government”) and the local administration (the “Rayispolkom”) approached the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the “EBRD”, or the “Bank”) with a request to finance the priority investments aimed at reconstruction and modernisation of the wastewater treatment facilities (the “PIP” or the ”Project”) to ensure compliance with the national and EU standards and HELCOM recommendations for effluent quality treatment. The Company’s operations include water supply and wastewater treatment, district heating and other socially important services in the city of Lida. The water supply and wastewater treatment services constitute around 20-25 per cent of the Company’s revenues.
The artesian water does not comply with sanitary norms of Belarus for iron and therefore requires iron removal. The sewage networks consist of 150 km pipes depreciated by about 62 per cent with 27 km of sewage networks requiring an immediate replacement. The wastewater treatment plant is operating close to its design capacity of 44,000 m3/day. The wastewater treatment plant was built in 1971 and consists of two separate biological activated sludge trains preceded by two mechanical screens and four sand removal tanks. In 2002 a second bio-sorption train without mechanical sedimentation was commissioned in operation.
The Project objective is to rehabilitate the existing wastewater treatment plant to achieve full compliance of the wastewater services with the national and EU standards and HELCOM recommendations.
Assignment Description:
The Client now intends to retain a consulting company (the Consultant) to provide assistance for institutional building in the form of a Corporate Development Programme and a Social Support Programme as detailed later in this text (the Assignment).
The assignment consists of two main Parts:
Part I: Corporate Development Programme for the Company
The Consultant shall assist the Company to improve its commercial standing, service and environmental performance by supporting the identification and implementation, and where necessary, the establishment of the corporate, financial, operational and environmental management required to become financially and operationally sustainable and also meet the related covenants included in the EBRD financing documents. The Consultant’s main task is to assist the Company to develop a short-medium term focused corporate development plan and to improve the corporate planning capacity to assist ongoing transition towards becoming a self-sustaining entity with commercially sustainable operations, as well as implementing the Environmental and Social Action Plan (ESAP) developed for the Company.
Part II: Social Support Programme
The second objective is to assess the existing social support mechanism for the low income customers and assess how the Company makes use of it in terms of knowledge of its vulnerable customer base and its financial support needs. Following this assessment the Consultant will recommend improvements and actions for improved implementation by the Company. Belarus has a welfare system with subsidies to vulnerable groups, including subsidised utility services, which will bridge the affordability gap. The State and Rayispolkom have not provided direct subsidies to the low income families, instead subsidies are provided to the Company to keep the tariff level low. In addition, cross-subsidisation between commercial and residential clients exists. Detailed mechanism needs to be developed and agreed between the Rayispolkom and the Company and reflected in the Public Service Agreement to be signed between the Rayispolkom and the Company. It is noted that this may be somewhat limited by the fact that the tariffs for the residential clients are set at the country level. The Bank will be in parallel working with the Government of Belarus on the tariff related benchmarks. The counterparts of Part II are the Company, the Rayispolkom and potentially Oblispolkom.
Status of Selection Process: Interested firms or group of firms are hereby invited to submit expressions of interest.
Assignment Start Date and Duration: The Assignment is expected to start in Q2 2017 and has an estimated overall duration of three years.
Cost Estimate for the Assignment: EUR 300,000 (exclusive of VAT). The Consultant must determine whether any indirect taxes/VAT are chargeable on the proposed services and state the basis for such. If any indirect taxes/VAT are payable, the Client will have to pay indirect taxes/VAT element to the services directly to the Consultant unless otherwise agreed.
Funding Source: It is anticipated that the contract will be financed by the EBRD’s Shareholder Special Fund.
Eligibility: There are no eligibility restrictions.
Consultant Profile: The Consultant will be a firm or a group of firm that will ensure that the appropriately qualified experts are available, as required, for each of the different tasks outlined above. It is expected that the assignment will be led by an appropriately qualified project manager with experience in the water and wastewater sectors and in implementing the key areas of this assignment, accompanied by both key and supporting experts. It is expected that short time input by key international experts be combined with local/regional expert input. The local/regional experts would secure presence in the field and continuity. The team should include the following key experts:
- Project Manager/Technical expert;
- Local project Manager/Technical expert;
- Finance expert;
- Local finance expert;
- Environmental expert;
- Social expert;
- Pool of local experts.
The Consultant’s team should have the Russian language skills necessary for communication and interactions with the Client.
The Consultant is required to provide the Company with independent, impartial technical, cost, strategic, management and financial advice, and as such will not be permitted to have a commercial interest in any other contracts or agreements for the Project.
Submission Requirements: In order to determine the capability and experience of Consultants seeking to be shortlisted, the information submitted should include the following:
1. Company/group of firms’ profile, organisation and staffing (max. 2-4 pages).
2. Details of previous project experience or similar assignments particularly undertaken in the previous five years, including information on contract value, contracting entity/client, project location/country, duration (mm/yy to mm/yy), expert months provided (if different from duration) , main activities, objectives, and contact persons’ details to verify the references.
3. CVs of key experts who could carry out the Assignment detailing qualifications, experience in similar assignments, particularly assignments undertaken in the previous five years, including information on contracting entity/client, project location/country, duration (mm/yy to mm/yy), expert months provided, assignment budget, main activities, objectives.
4. Completed Consultant Declaration Form and Contact Sheet, the template for which is available from the following web-link:
http://www.ebrd.com/pages/workingwithus/procurement/notices/csu/contact_sheet.doc.
The expression of interest shall not exceed 20 pages (excluding CVs Consultant Declaration and Contact Sheet).
The complete expression of interest (including CVs, Consultant Declaration and Contact Sheet) should be submitted, in English and Russian via email (pdf) to the Client’s contact person, to reach the Client not later than the closing date. One additional copy shall reach the Bank’s contact person by the same due date. The expression of interest shall be one file (pdf). The Client reserves the right to reject applications of firms submitting more than one file. Only if any limitation on the permissible file size is exceeded, the Consultant may split the expression of interest into further files.
Important Notes:
1. Following this invitation for expressions of interest, a shortlist of qualified firms will be formally invited to submit proposals. Consultant selection and contracting will be subject to availability of funding.
2. The shortlist criteria are as follows:
- Firm’s previous successful and verifiable project experience in corporate development and social support programmes in the water and wastewater sector in comparable climatic and geological conditions (40%)
- Firm’s previous experience in working with IFIs (20%)
- CV of the Key Experts as above (40%).
3. Interested firms may apply and be selected for both Corporate Development Programme and Project Implementation Unit Support assignments, however would be expected to provide different teams of experts.
