Procurement of Office Furniture

Dear Sir/Madam,

1. The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) is seeking quotation(s) for the procurement of Office Furniture for the Fiji Multi-country Office based in Suva, Fiji.

2. To prepare a responsive quotation, you must carefully review, and understand the contents of the following documents:
a. This Letter and Bid Instruction Sheet (BIS)
b. Instruction to Bidders (Annex 1)
c. Technical Specifications (Annex 2)
d. Returnable documents (Annex 3)
(i) Bid Acknowledgement
(ii) Bidder Information Form
(iii) Bid Submission Form
(iv) Financial Offer
(v) JV Partner Information Form
(vi) Past Performance Statement Form
(vii) No Adverse Judgement Confirmation Form
e. Other Forms
(i) Voluntary Agreement for Promoting Gender Equality in the Workplace (Annex 4)
(ii) General Conditions of Contract (Annex 5)
f. Proposed Model Form of Contract (Annex 6)
g. Submission Checklist (Annex 7)
h. Eligibility Criteria (Annex 8)

3. A contract may be awarded to the supplier having submitted a quotation representing the best value for money, i.e. lowest-priced technically-compliant of the proposed offers and meeting the following minimum evaluation criteria:
Technical responsiveness/Full compliance to specifications
Qualifications and experience of proposed staff/personnel (if required)
Comprehensiveness of after-sales services
Full acceptance of UN Women General Conditions of Contract
Earliest Delivery / Shortest Lead Time.

4. It is UN Women’s intention to issue the contract as presented herein the ITB documents. Therefore, offerors should ensure any due diligence regarding the legal review and ability to be compliant to all contract terms and conditions is undertaken prior to the submission of your quotation. Submission of a quotation will be confirmation of accepting UN Women contract included herein.

5. In the case two (2) quotations are evaluated and found to be the same ranking in terms of technical qualification and price, UN Women will award contract to the company that is either women-owned or has a majority woman employed. This is in support of UN Women’s core mandate. In the case that both companies are women-owned or have a majority woman employed, UN Women will request best and final offer from both suppliers and shall make a final comparison of the competing suppliers.

6. UN Women reserves the right to accept or reject any quotation, and to cancel the process and reject all quotations at any time prior to the award of contract without thereby incurring any liability to the suppliers or any obligation to inform the suppliers of the grounds for such action.

7. At any time prior to the deadline for the submission of quotations, UN Women may, for any reason, whether at its own initiative or in response to a clarification requested by a supplier, modify the ITB by way of a written amendment. All suppliers that have received the RFQ shall be notified in writing of any such amendments. To offer suppliers reasonable time to take any such amendments into account in preparing their quotations, UN Women may, at its discretion, extend the deadline for the submission.

8. UN Women’s vendor protest procedure provides an opportunity for appeal to supplier(s) who believe that they were not treated fairly. This link (http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/procurement/vendor-protest-procedure) provides further details regarding UN Women’s vendor protest procedures.

Suppliers, their subsidiaries, agents, intermediaries and principals must cooperate with the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) of the United Nations, UN Women Internal Audit and Investigations Group (IAIG) as well as with other investigations authorized by the Executive Director and with the UN Women Ethics Office as and when required. Such cooperation shall include, but not be limited to the following: access to all employees, representatives, agents and assignees of the supplier; as well as production of all documents requested, including financial records.
Failure to fully cooperate with investigations will be considered sufficient grounds to allow UN Women to repudiate and terminate the contract, and to debar and remove the supplier from UN Women’s list of registered suppliers.

9. UN Women implements a zero tolerance on fraud and other proscribed practices and is committed to identifying and addressing all such acts and practices against UN Women, as well as third parties involved in UN Women activities. UN Women expects its suppliers to adhere to the UN Supplier Code of Conduct found in this link: http://www.un.org/depts/ptd/pdf/conduct_english.pdf.

10. This letter is not to be construed in any way as an offer to contract with your organization.

Yours sincerely,
Sandra Bernklau
UN Women Representative