Call for Tender for the procurement of External Auditing Service (Відкритий тендер)

Kyiv Cyclists’ Association (U-Cycle) is the largest Ukrainian non-for-profit membership organisation focused on promoting cycling as a sustainable and safe urban transportation. Find out more at https://u-cycle.org.ua/.

We would like to invite you to provide your audit services to our project named “ Introduction of Bicycle Safety Education in Ukrainian Schools. Promoting sustainable mobility and improving road safety for children and youth in Ukraine”. 

You are kindly requested to send us your Proposal with separated Technical Proposal and Financial Proposal (2 files/envelops). Followings are project initial information and instructions to interested bidders.

І. INFORMATION FOR AUDITING

Expected time needed for the audit (included audit field work)

 Language of the Proposal: The Proposals prepared by the bidders and all correspondence and documents relating to the Proposal exchanged by the bidders and Purchaser shall be written in the English and Ukrainian.

Proposal Currencies: All prices shall be quoted in UAH.

Period of Validity of Proposals: Proposals shall remain valid for 120 days after the date of Proposal submission indicated in the table above.

Proposal: The proposal to be submitted shall include but not limited to the below information: 

II. THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AUDITOR

- The audit firm is familiar with International Auditing Standards (ISA 800/805 & ISRS 3000)

- Experience in auditing NGO projects/Public funds. Experience in auditing projects funded by the German public donors 

- To be a member of the Audit Chamber of Ukraine

- Understanding of the audit requirements

- Understanding the deliverable of the requirements

- Approach and methodology to be used

- Initiatives (if any) for improving audit implementation plan

- Implementation plan (starting time and total time needed)

- Human resources arrangement (meet requirements and fit with the implementing plan) 

- Team leader and Team member hold CPA, or ACCA, CFA or MBA qualification and experience with audit of NGO projects/Public funds.

 We’ll expect 3 reports: 

- Opinion resting upon ISA 800/805.

- Report on the compliance on funding agreement and use of funds according to ISRS 3000.

- Management letter where the auditor would report non-material exceptions (if any), other significants weaknesses in internal control systems (if any), other significant weaknesses and other areas of non-compliance (if any) identified during the audit. Auditor´s recommendations on how to address those weaknesses should be included in the management letter. 

III. TERMS OF REFERENCE

1. Scope of the external audit

The external audit should include, but should not be limited to, the following audit and control measures.

• Checking the accounting records for regularity and completeness.
• Checking the financial report, which must show all income and expenditure relating to the project and confirm that supporting documents exist for all income and expenditure.
• Checking the management of the project funds made available. This includes:
  • the project funds transferred to the promoter during the current financial year or during the project period
  • any interest earned during the financial year or the duration of the project on the amounts paid to the promoter
  • other income generated through the project activities for the partner
• verification of the extent to which the financial resources are in line with the planned project objectives and measures
• Verification of the economic efficiency of expenditure (to be used sparingly and financial resources to be used as effectively as possible.)
• Checking personnel costs and social security contributions with regard to local custom, the laws in the respective project country, in particular compliance with the contracts and legal payment of the corresponding funds.
• Verification of compliance with the cost plan through target/actual comparison (on the basis of the last valid financing plan).
• Verification of the economic use of the project equipment.
• Control of the procured inventory, its whereabouts and its appropriate use.
• Verification and confirmation of the completeness & correctness of project-relevant documents.
• Verification of compliance with all agreements (contracts, Guidelines of the German private executing agency, funding guidelines of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the BNBest-P/ private executing agencies and the Procurement Guidelines of the BMZ).

2. Auditors certificate

The external audit report must contain the following elements:

• Description of the audit mandate and scope with detailed comments on the results of the test. The auditor must also list and present the results of the audit, which documents form the basis of the audit of the appropriate use of funds and of compliance with the project duration.
• Naming of recommendations if there were objections.
• Where appropriate, comment on the follow-up of audit observations from previous years.
• Financing plan in the latest version, structured according to the numerical evidence of the use of funds and presented in the same way as the model in the Appendix of this handbook (see page 7-8). The comparison of planned and actual expenditure is made in the currency in which the expenditure was incurred. The audit does not result in the amounts being converted into Euro.
• In the event of deviations between the actual expenditure (actual) and the planned expenditure according to the accounts, the latest financing plan (target) of more than 30 % of the individual estimates (upper positions in financing plan), these deviations must be explained and justified separately.
• In the event of deviations between the actual expenditure and the planned expenditure according to the most recent financing plan (target) for the sub-items of more than 30 %, this must be justified.
• The final audit opinion of the certificate must contain the following content (minimum requirement), which must be clearly formulated and, if necessary, adapted by the external audit body: 

As a minimum requirement, the final certificate shall contain the following:

“We hereby confirm that we have audited the accounts of the [name of the promoter in the developing country] for the financing of the project [name] on the basis of the following conditions of use: [List of the relevant orders and documents]. We have inspected the books and documents for this purpose. Our audit led to the following

Result: …”.

Subsequently, the audit should provide concrete statements on the following questions:

1. To what extent is the income and expenditure properly substantiated by supporting documents?
2. To what extent were the expenditure substantiated in accordance with the application and the approval, and correspond to the purpose of the application and the final budget? Are any deviations from the latest financing plan explained in your own explanations depicted?

3. To what extent are the proven revenues, which are accounted for as own contributions by the local project-executing agency, the target group and/or other bodies in the project country, in their height has been correctly displayed and their origin explained in accordance with the specifications?
4. To what extent were the conditions imposed by the donor in the project agreement noticed? How was the response to the requirements? In which points were these conditions ignored and are reasons for non-compliance given?
5. what are the positive or negative features of the project that need to be mentioned?

- The attestation should provide a clear conclusion regarding the compliance with the conditions set out in the project binding agreements.

In order to ensure the quality of the attestation, the following must be observed:

The minimum requirements for auditor’s certificates laid down in the BMZ funding guidelines must not merely reproduced pro forma in the auditors’ reports.

      3. Application Process

All interested bidders/consultants are requested to submit their Technical Proposals and Financial Proposals in Separate documents as attachments (Bidders who will combine both technical and financial proposals shall be disqualified) via email [email protected] on or before 25th January 2023 18:00 (Kyiv time). Bids received after deadline shall not be considered.

Email title should be: “BMZ PROJECT AUDIT”

Your financial proposal should have your professional fee, payment terms and Credit period. Financial proposal should not be part of the technical proposal, it should be a separate document. In case of any clarifications write to [email protected]