Procurement process

If the business case concludes that the project shows potential in PPP mode, an acquisition strategy should be identified.

Procurement process

The procurement process consists in establishing the process allowing for the selection of a private partner. This process is made up primarily of the following elements: request for information (optional), request for qualification, call for tenders, and signing of the partnership agreement. Following is a brief description of each of these elements: Request for expression of interest: Also known as a registration of interest, the request of interest serves to determine the level of interest in the business community and to obtain comments from enterprises about the future project. This step is optional. Request for qualification: The candidates that participate in the request for qualification must demonstrate their technical capacity to design and construct infrastructure, their technical capacity to operate and maintain infrastructure in a PPP context, their capacity to fund the work and their expertise in funding implementation. Request for proposals: The request for proposals allows enterprises or consortiums that meet the requirements of the request for qualification to present specific tenders which must contain a technical component and costs. Signature of the partnership contract: At this stage, an agreement is signed between the selected private partner and the government. Such a contract specifies in particular the risk sharing involved and the established performance criteria.

It is important to note that the main stages of the procurement process will be subject to external auditing. A process auditor must therefore determine whether the implementation of the acquisition strategy meets the principles of probity, fairness and transparency.

Transparency rules

We will publish all information that can be published without harm to trade secrets. Step 1: All documents related to the call for tenders are made public after being issued. They will be sent to the websites of the department involved and the Agency. Step 2: Each PPP project will be studied by an independent process auditor at each step until the signing of agreements. The auditor will make public a notice confirming that the process was handled according to the established and announced procedures. Step 3: Partnership agreements signed with private partners will be made public via the websites of the department involved and the Agency. Step 4: After a partnership agreement has been signed, we will make public a summary of the comparative study which led the government to conclude that a publicprivate partnership was the best option for citizens (Analysis of added value for the invested funding).