DMA organizes a seminar on the Procurement, Bids & Auctions Manual

As part of enhancing municipal system legal framework and for the development of modern management systems, the Department of Municipal Affairs’ Legal Section organized a seminar to highlight the Procurement, Bids & Auctions Manual.  The aim of the seminar was to introduce a quality step toward understanding, implementation and follow up of the manual, issued by Law number 6 for the year 2008, and ensure simple and smooth bidding procedures and to describe Contract Management Officer duties.

Containing the main provisions and procedures to be followed in a smooth manner, the manual includes public bid offer procedures, with a sketch for all steps, in addition to works and duties assigned to Contract Management Officer, with a sketch, due to its important effect on simplifying, accelerating and control of all transactions, and to provide chance for competition and competency enhancement to all national citizens.

Yousef Al Kuwaiti, DMA Legal Section Head, described the manual as a step ahead towards quality in DMA procurement process. “The manual includes delegation of authority details for all level of management in Abu Dhabi Government entities,” he added.  “Each entity is responsible for all procurement processes, thus replacing the role of Purchasing Department before the issuance of the manual.”

Talking about contract management, Al Al Bashir, DMA Legal Advisor highlight the important shift in contract management from centralization to decentralization. “Each division and section in DMA has now to ensure that all terms and articles has been fully implemented as agreed and according to the manual,” he commented. “The contract manager will be in charge of the implementation once a contract is signed.”

Al Bashir elaborated main responsibilities of the contract manager who must ensure that the concerned division has fulfilled contract requirements.  According to Al Bashir, the contract manager must handle information request, amendments, claims, disputes and other obligations. 

Yousef Al Kuwaiti spoke about “the Delegation Authority Guide” (DAG) in DMA which is under preparation in collaboration with Department of Finance (DOF). The DAG has defined financial limits on the approval for each management level.

Concluding the seminar, Al Kuwaiti thanked the participants for their active discussions which enriched the seminar and highlighted the importance of a feedback from all DMA employees.