There are various federal government policies and administrative regulations that should be observed when it comes to handling contracts. Most of the administrative policies which exist are application of the existing policies, procedures and laws. According to the conviction specified under sections 121, 124 and 418 of the criminal code, small companies are given equal opportunities to the developed companies when it comes to state contract (Sandholm, 2008).. This implies that the financial ability of big companies is not considered. The law was put in place so that small business can develop and bring about competitiveness when it comes to bidding for government contracts.
The is also the law that governs the conduct of public servants. This law states that public servants must conduct themselves as if the criminal code is always in force. Research shows that big companies always get contracts because of bribery. They bribe the tendering committee since they have a lot of money. The small companies are left because they do not have money to pay. Once bribery is eliminated, the whole tendering process becomes fair.
As per the laws governing bid soliciting and contractor selections, equal opportunity is given to all bidders. This is according to the policy statement so that it reflects fairness when it comes to spending public fund expenditure and as a requirement specified in the trade agreement. The procurement method applied to contract must be practicable. All firms are given equal opportunity to get access to the businesses provided by the government. For all procurement, every participating party is accorded equal opportunity to government business. As such, the contracting body must scrutinize so that a potential contractor is selected. The scope of any advertised project should be broad enough to avoid inhibiting free and fair competition. The laws demand that a contract that receives less than three respondents must be increased. The contracting body needs to device a well laid methods of informing the industry. This includes issuing regular periodic to associated companies.
The contracting process is always in three phases. This includes the planning of the contract, formation and management. The contract planning phase starts when the executive or the program manager directs that the government is in need of a particular product before the solicitation terms and conditions are formulated (Azevedo & Vale, 2005). The formation phase starts from a formal solicitation for bids then the signing of the contract. The contract management phase starts from work initiation and with the contract termination.
The following activities take place in each phase
Contract planning
- Determining the need for the product
- Analysis of technical requirements of the service or product.
- Identifying potential contractor
- Provision of technical information to help determine the type of contract and the existing level of competition
- Planning of the source selection process technical aspects.
- Forming the solicitation terms and conditions which are technical
- Preparation of statement of work.
Contract formation
- The panel evaluates the proposals and bids
- The technical terms and conditions are established
Contract management
- Represent the technical representatives of the agency in administrating contracts
- Stand in for technical meetings and recording of important records
- Communicate with the program officer and the user parties and the performance of contracts.
- Maintaining of the COR
- Help the contractor in internalizing the technical requirements.
References
Azevedo, F., & Vale, Z. A. (2005). Optimal short-term contract allocation using particle swarm optimization. WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications, 2(5), 552-558.
McManus, L. F. (2011). Anatomy of a Helping Hand: Women-Owned Small Businesses and Federal Contract Procurement, The. Wm. & Mary J. Women & L., 18, 625.
Sandholm, T. (2008). Contract types for satisfying task allocation. In Proceedings of the AAAI spring symposium: Satisficing models (pp. 23-25).
