Procurement policy RCN: 91 per cent local in first half 2020

SABA/SINT EUSTATIUS - In the past half year, Rijksdienst Caribisch Nederland procured 91 per cent of its commissions locally. The amount involved in the first half of 2020 was about 15 million dollars. In 2019, 88 per cent of procurement commissions – approximately 33 million dollars – were spent in Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire, St. Maarten, St. Eustatius and Saba.

One of the objects of the procurement policy of Rijksdienst Caribisch Nederland (RCN) is to support the local economy of the Caribbean part of the Kingdom. In this effort, RCN aims at bringing about long-term agreements of four to six years to offer local entrepreneurs sufficient certainty. This is important, for safeguarding that local entrepreneurs can make investments for example, (e.g. in staff) whenever deemed necessary.

In 2019, 88 per cent of procurement commissions were carried out locally. Careful scrutiny of local possibilities led to an increase to 91 per cent in the first half of 2020. During the corona crisis, RCN decided that its procurements should remain at the same level and, if possible, be moved forward to prevent entrepreneurs from suffering loss of income.

It is estimated that local commissioning will remain at 91 per cent throughout the year. The 9 per cent of commissions not procured locally pertains to long-term agreements with suppliers in the Netherlands, mainly in the field of ICT. With respect to these commissions too, it will be reconsidered if deviation is possible.

Tendering procedure

As to procurements involving a turnover of $30,000 or more over a four-year period RCN always conducts a tendering procedure. This occurs about 50 times a year on average.

In a tendering procedure, an advertisement is published to invite local entrepreneurs to participate, to make sure that no party is forgotten. When they are registered, entrepreneurs receive all documents required for submitting a good quotation.

During the procedure, offerers exclusively have contact with procurement advisers. Independent of their fellow members, each member of an internal evaluation committee evaluates the anonymised answers to the questions (so during the evaluation, they do not know the respective offerer’s identity).

After the individual evaluations, the results are compared and expressed in an average quality figure. Next, the price indication is disclosed and combined with the quality figure. In this way, RCN wants to safeguard the most independent evaluation possible and choose the best price/quality ratio. The results are shared with the offerers. They have the opportunity of filing an objection to the result.

In the event of procurement commissions not exceeding $30,000 in four years, an accelerated local procurement procedure is used: three suppliers are asked directly to submit an offer. (RCN Caribbean Netherlands)