Terms of Reference: Head Office Construction Project Auditor

AATF - Terms of Reference: Head Office Construction Project Auditor

Introduction

AATF is a not-for-profit African led technology- transfer organization that provides farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with practical technology solutions to overcome farm productivity constraints. Founded in 2003, AATF is driven by the vision of a prosperous, resilient, food and nutrition-secure Africa, where smallholder farmers’ livelihoods are transformed through agricultural innovations.

Objective of the Audit

The objective of the Project Auditor is to provide independent professional oversight to ensure that all of the Head Office Construction (HOC) Project adheres to technical, financial, environmental, and compliance standards. The auditor is to conduct comprehensive audits across these areas to safeguard the project’s integrity, ensure efficient execution, and maintain accountability.

Roles and Responsibilities

The Project Auditor’s role is to maintain transparency and ensure that the (HOC) Project is completed on time, within budget, and in compliance with all technical, financial, environmental, and regulatory standards. Through regular audits and timely recommendations, the key role and responsibilities are identifying and mitigating risks, contributing to the overall success of the project.

The key areas of focus include:

  1. Technical Audit:
    1. Ensures that construction follows required technical specifications, building codes, and quality standards.
    2. Responsibilities include reviewing structural integrity, inspecting material quality, monitoring construction techniques, and ensuring adherence to health and safety protocols.
  2. Financial Audit:
    1. Regularly audit the financial transactions of the project to ensure compliance with budget, AATF requirements, and internal financial policies.
    2. Assesses financial management to ensure the proper allocation of funds and prevention of financial misappropriation.
    3. Key tasks include reviewing budgets, monitoring payments, auditing procurement  processes, and ensuring all financial transactions are accurately documented.
  3. Process Audit:
    1. Evaluates the efficiency of the project’s processes, policies, and adherence to best practices.
  4. Compliance Audits:
    1. Ensures the project adheres to all legal, regulatory, and organizational policies.
    2. The auditor reviews compliance with building codes, permits, licenses, labor laws, health and safety regulations, and ensures contractors and stakeholders fulfill their contractual obligations.
  5. Risk Audits:
    1. Review risk management strategies and provide recommendations for improving the management of risks.
  6. Fraud Detection:
    1. Monitor any signs of financial misconduct or fraud and report any concerns to the Special Board and Secretariat Committees.
  7. Contractual Compliance:
    1. Ensure all contracts are executed according to terms and verify that contract changes are appropriately documented and approved.

Deliverables

The deliverables will be based on the key focus areas.

  1. Technical Audit:
    1. Detailed technical audit report, including findings on structural integrity, material quality, and construction techniques.
    2. Compliance checklist for building codes and quality standards.
    3. Documentation on adherence to health and safety protocols.
    4. Recommendations for addressing identified technical issues.
  2. Financial Audit:
    1. Comprehensive financial audit report summarizing budget compliance and fund allocation.
    2. Review of procurement processes and verification of payment accuracy.
    3. Documentation of financial transactions and adherence to internal financial policies.
    4. Recommendations for mitigating financial risks and ensuring accountability.
  3. Process Audit:
    1. Evaluation report on the efficiency of project processes and adherence to best practices.
    2. Recommendations for process improvements and streamlined workflows.
  4. Compliance Audit:
    1. Compliance checklist for legal, regulatory, and organizational policies.
    2. Report on adherence to building codes, permits, licenses, labor laws, and health and safety regulations.
    3. Documentation of contractor and stakeholder compliance with contractual obligations.
  5. Risk Audit:
    1. Risk assessment report, including a review of risk management strategies.
    2. Recommendations for improving risk mitigation and management practices.
  6. Fraud Detection:
    1. Fraud detection report outlining any identified misconduct or suspicious activities.
    2. Documentation of investigations and findings.
    3. Recommendations for improving controls to prevent future financial misconduct.
  7. Contractual Compliance:
    1. Audit report on contract execution and adherence to terms.
    2. Documentation of contract changes with appropriate approvals.
    3. Recommendations for improving contractual compliance and oversight.

Auditors’ Qualifications

  1. The auditor must fulfil at least one of the following requirements:
    • Be a member of the national authority or body for accounting and audit.
    • Be a member of a national accounting or audit authority or entity and must hold at least one of the following certificates: CIA, CGAP, ACCA, CIMA.
    • Be registered as an auditor in the register of auditors maintained by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK).

2.   All qualified Construction Auditors (CA) should have the following skills, which are needed to identify, quantify, and document overbilling and billing errors:

  1. Well versed in normal industry practices.
  2. Skilled in interpreting Construction Contracts.
  3. Understand Project’s policies, procedures, and documents.
  4. Skilled in interviewing Project participants in order to understand how things were done and identify areas of billing risk.
  5. Able to design and conduct tests intended to identify areas of potential overbilling or billing errors.
  6. Able to conduct investigations of high-risk areas in search of evidence of overbilling or billing errors.
  7. Ability to quantify company overhead rates and labor burden rates
  8. Able to document overbillings or billing errors
  9. Additional skills that are needed to investigate construction claims that involve delay, acceleration, disruption, changes in conditions, changes in scope, or consequential damage. These skills include:
    1. Analytical experience required to quantify:
      1. Productivity
      2. Measured mile criteria
    2.   Schedule experience including critical path scheduling
    3. Engineering experience including cost estimating
    4.   Local and national market research experience related to patterns in:
      1. Material costs
      2. Labor costs
      3. Other competitive issues

7. Contact Duration:

It is estimated to be a two-year engagement from the last date the contract is signed by the parties.

8. Application Requirements

Interested Individual consultants/consultancy firms are expected to submit the following:

A. Technical Proposal (Not more than 10 Pages excluding annexes/attachments)

  • Individual/Company Profile.
  • Clear work plan and timelines supported by a Gantt chart.
  • Proof of experience in handling similar projects by providing a list of past and present clients for which the consultant/firm conducted similar projects.
  • Submit at least three Certificates of completion/recommendation letters from previous most recent clients and include contract information.
  • Submit names of the lead team and support team, with their CVs, academic, professional certificates and functional responsibilities of the key people to be engaged.
  • Indicate years of experience in the field of construction. (Over 10 years of experience will be an added advantage).
  • Applicable statutory documents for Construction Auditors (CA)
  • Any other information to support your proposal.

B.  Financial Proposal (Not more than 2 Pages)

  • Budget with clear cost structure and justified including estimated days of working, and expenses related to every phase.
  • Be comprehensive and inclusive of all applicable taxes.
  • Indicate terms and conditions of payment.

9. Application Submission

Interested applicants should send their proposal (Technical and Financial) together with other supporting documents to the Procurement Office through procurement@aatf-africa.org by COB 3rd January 2025 with the subject head “HOC PROJECT AUDITOR”

10.  Terms and conditions of the proposal

AATF reserves the right to request new or additional information regarding each service provider and any individual or other persons associated with its project proposal. AATF reserves the right not to make any appointment from the proposals submitted.

Service providers shall not make available or disclose details pertaining to their Project proposal with anyone not specifically involved, unless authorized to do so by AATF. Service providers shall not issue any press release or other public announcement pertaining to details of their project proposal without prior written approval.

AATF Service providers are required to declare any conflict of interest they may have in the transaction for which the tender is submitted or any potential conflict of interest. AATF reserves the right not to consider further any proposal where such a conflict of interest exists or where such potential conflict of interest may arise.

11.  Confidentiality statement

All data and information received from AATF for the purpose of this assignment are to be treated confidential and are only to be used in connection with the execution of these Terms of Reference. All intellectual property rights arising from the execution of these Terms of Reference are assigned to AATF.

Only successful candidates will be contacted