Integrity Assessment of Public Transport and Road Management MoE in Chernivtsi and Zhytomyr (UKR)
Description:
The European Union Anti-Corruption Initiative (EUACI) in Ukraine is a joint EU and Government of Denmark financed programme aimed at supporting Ukraine to reduce corruption at the national and local level through the empowerment of citizens, civil society, businesses, and state institutions. This assignments falls under EUACI’s component 2, where partner cities are supported in their efforts to strengthen integrity, transparency, and accountability.
Ukraine’s MOEs often have a significant economic and social impact in local communities and are among the largest employers, contributing to a substantial percentage of the workforce. Because of their role, structure, mandate, legal status, and many competing interests, they are often exposed to critical integrity risks. If compared with private companies, MOEs can face particularly heightened corruption risk owing, among others, to underlying issues in their ownership, regulatory and corporate governance arrangements, as well as shortcomings in the quality and credibility of corporate disclosure. Given the challenges, the cities' and MOEs' leadership are keen to pilot an assessment of the integrity situation and, subsequently, to follow up on its findings, probably through the development of an Integrity Plan based on the findings and recommendations of the integrity assessments.
The EUACI is seeking a Consultant (Consulting firm) that can work closely with the EUACI and its partner cities to conduct an integrity assessment of two municipally owned enterprises (MoEs) «Chernivtsi Trolleybus Department» (Chernivtsi) and «Management of automobile roads» (Zhytomyr) in the cities of Chernivtsi and Zhytomyr respectively, and provide practical recommendations (solutions) on how best to tackle identified risks to the enterprises integrity.
The purpose of the assignment is to provide a sound technical foundation for the EUACI's support to its partner cities Chernivtsi and Zhytomyr in the integrity assessment of MOEs.
The integrity assessment to be conducted with the two MOEs should as a minimum cover the following three main areas and sub-areas:
1) Assessment of transparency and accountability of procedures and processes:
Evaluation of the MOEs internal procedures and their enforcement using as point of departure the best practices of transparency and accountability for integrity assessment in Ukraine and international standards;
Evaluation of the MOEs procurement cycle including in terms of its flexibility, quality, and efficiency.
Assessment of MOEs compliance with the requirements of Article 78 of the Commercial Code of Ukraine.
2) Assessment of integrity risks:
Analysis and assessment of the legal, institutional, financial, procurement, and other factors to identify vulnerabilities within the operations of each MOEs;
Advice on efficient, cost-effective strategies to mitigate the identified vulnerabilities or risks.
3) Corporate governance assessment:
Identification of the current status and ability to implement the OECD corporate governance principles at the MOEs.
Advice on the implementation of these principles. The specific industry standards shall be considered for implementation if not applied by the targeted MOEs.
The expected duration of the assignment is 7 months
The maximum budget available for this assignment is DKK 730 270,00 (equivalent to approx. EUR 98 000,48). This amount includes subsistence allowance for fieldwork in the partner cities as well as costs related to local travel, and other project related costs such as for example audit of the contract and printing
Deadline for applications:
24 May 2023, 18:00, Danish time
Interested Consultants can request the documents for participation by email to the contact person stated below.
Contact point:
EUACI
Name of Programme Officer: Taras Sluchyk
E-mail address, Programme Officer: [email protected]
Telephone of Programme Officer: +380965598166
Criteria for selection:
A minimum of three and a maximum of five applicants with references best suited for this assignment will be invited to submit a tender