Background

Technical Support to the Consultants Selection Committee (CSC) has been a central element of UNDP work in Kuwait since 1981.  Several UNDP assisted projects were implemented in support of enhancing local capacities in various aspects of sustainable development.  This activity under the SCPD Project aims at strengthening the expertise of the national cadre in the areas of construction project management, variation orders and assessments of project execution progress.  The Government of Kuwait represented by CSC, as the executing agency, and the Consultants Department (CD) at CSC, as the implementing agency, have indicated their desire to extend UNDP’s technical assistance to CD in accordance with the current UNDP Country Cooperation Framework for Kuwait.

Objective:

The CSC and the CD proposes to employ one international consultant to assist in effectively conducting work to enhance the functions of the Consultants Department as described in the duties and deliverables below. The Major Targeted Involvement will focus on improving transparency of engaging A&E or CM or Specialized Consultants starting with proper planning, enlisting data bank, long listing, shortlisting selection, evaluation, follow-up, negotiations, expediting contracts’ finalization, turning over to statutory client or end user & if possible  monitor development & consultants’ performance.

Profile of the Implementing Agency:

• State development projects are coordinated by the Consultants Department of the Consultants Selection Committee. Guided by the Government’s Strategic and Operational Plans and Annual Budgets, government entities submit their annual development project proposals and corresponding budgets to the CD. The CD reviews these proposals and the related budgets in the light of plans, priorities and capital (and maintenance contract) budgets of the government, ensuring plans respond to the government’s plans and priorities, and are within allocated budgets.
  
• Responsibilities of the Development Project Sector. The Consultants Department has responsibilities relating to most aspects of the consulting side (e.g., Design and Supervision) for construction contracts, and of maintenance contracts (from this point onward, this report will deal only with non-maintenance contracts), in consultation and coordination, as appropriate, with other sectors of the Consultants Selection Committee, and sponsoring entities.

Responsibilities of the Consultants Department include:

• Review and approval of Terms of Reference (and provision of assistance in their preparation, if required) in an objective, fair and impartial manner.
• Active participation with other Government Ministries and Agencies (Clients) in the selection of the consultants through an evaluation process for the Design, Supervision, Project Management, Construction Management, EDP and  Administrative projects.
• Maintenance of registries of qualified local and international consultants, from which selections of consultants are made.
• Manage Variation Orders Assessment activities.
• Manage contract arbitration activities

Profile of the the staff of the Consultants Department:

The Consultants Department consist of Qualified Engineers (Director, Supervisors, Controllers, senior and junior engineers, and support staffs)

The department performs the following overall tasks:

The Consultant Department specializes in verifying the terms of reference pertaining to study, design and supervision of national construction, rehabilitation, maintenance, Feasibility projects for ministries, government and independent agencies. This includes the following functions:

• Participates in the preparation of the prequalification, short listing, and invitation procedures of international and local consultants of construction projects for ministries, government agencies, and independent and line agencies.
• Reviews requests made by beneficiaries among the government agencies to alter or adjust the requirements and/or components of projects, and request for proposals (RFP) technical (TP) and financial (FP) proposals.
• Studies both the technical and financial aspects of the TP and FP, and the extent to which they are in accord and agreement with the articles of the Terms of Reference requirement implementation with Beneficiaries and consultants, their effect on spending credits sanctioned within the budget, as well as the overall financial cost of the project.
• Studies requests made by agencies (Government Ministries) for clarifications on the technical and financial proposals and recommend modifications and adjustments.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Major Targeted Involvement will focus on improving transparency of engaging A&E or CM or Specialized Consultants starting with proper planning, enlisting data bank, long listing, shortlisting selection, evaluation, follow-up, negotiations, expediting contracts’ finalization, turning over to statutory client or end user & if possible  monitor development & consultants’ performance.

Deliverables:
 
The Consultant & his associated team targeted works could be briefed as follows:

• Establish the fields of consultancy domains falling under the ministry umbrella.
• Get acquainted with on the table works whether traditional or under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) scheme.
• Study the Ministry existing systems & procedures.
• Review the available Data Bank of local & International consultant.
• Investigate & search the net for competent reputable & active international consultants to insure access to any specialized consultant overlooked in the Data Bank.
• Review & upgrade the General Secretariat for Supreme Council for Planning and Development (GS-SCPD) websites & make sure to discard out of date redundancies.
• Put a Management Plan identifying the necessary in house &/or specialized resources needed to achieve the Job description targets through an open book team work approach insuring transfer of knowhow to the GS-SCPD team encouraging the adaption of decision making attitude while working under a non-bureaucratic but multi-sieve transparent & dynamic operating system that could lead down line to a selected team of competent resources selected from the existing GS-SCPD personnel &, if need be, additional new blood of capable professionals. The system must then allow for incentives & penalization subject to personnel performance & achievements.
• The Management Plan once approved by higher authorities will address the targets listed, the resources needed, the changes to adapt & the time/cost needed to achieve: 
• a) Processing of outstanding decisions
  b) Priority list to target projects
  c) Action on urgently needed works
  d) Review & if need be make sure of having an automated filing system.
  e) Train on a paperless automated system as much as possible.
  f) Establish an Organization Chart, define job descriptions, draw a flow of information
  g) Define accessibility & action parameters authority on information’s
  h) Update of the GS-SCPD web site or say sites
  i) Allocate resources’ in charge of GS-SCPD living Web
  j) Communicate, categorize & update the existing International Data Bank
  k) Categorize & update Local Consultants Data Bank
  l) Establish a system for periodical review on categories based on performance.
  m) Automate & Upgrade existing systems forms, procedures, valuation, contracts, decisions making & etc. subject to getting acquainted with the prevailing set up

In addition to the above deliverables, the consultant shall be able to perform the following functions:

• Cost estimation with various degrees of details for implementing construction projects
• Proper background in structures and civil engineering>
• Programming and schedule management for governmental projects quantity surveying.
• Value Engineering.
• Technical writer specialist.
• Analyzing variation order, particularly for large projects.
• Various engineering expertise (particularly in architecture, civil , electrical and mechanical) in design and supervision areas.
• Quality controlling and quality assurance for construction projects.
• Legal expertise in the fields of local and international construction, agreements, and contracts.
• Project life cycle analyst and expertise particularly in the fields of project time optimization.
• Project Cost- Benefit analyst.
• Maintenance management and maintenance expertise
• Statistical analyst, expertise.
• Business administrators with particular interest in means and methods of developing consulting business.
• Have some knowledge in Urban and master planning.
  

Competencies

• Leads teams effectively and shows conflict resolution skills.
• Consistently approaches work with a constructive attitude.
• Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills
• Builds strong relationships with clients and external actors.
• Remains calm and in control even under pressure
• Demonstrates openness and ability to deal with change.
  

Required Skills and Experience

Professional degree in Civil Engineering and more than 25 years of experience.

Additional Expertise and experience that are favorable :

• Data base programming and analyzing.
• Optimizing productivity and human resource management.
• Training experience and expertise.
• Macro and micro economic analysts.
• Visionaries and strategies developers in the fields of developing projects (particularly large scales).
• Document management.
• Pre investment studies for economically feasible projects and experience in cost/benefit and risk analysis.
• Some experience in project arbitration and mitigation.
• Some experience in BOT,BOO, .. PPP and expenditure projects.