The minimum bidding period shall be 21 days for national tenders and 30 days for international tenders. Pre-qualified bidders shall be given not less than 14 days. The days referred to here are calendar days.
Bidders are allowed to ask for clarifications. The Bidding Document have to specify the period after which no questions nor request for clarifications will be responded to. Should questions raised by the bidders induce a need for change or should the bidders require
changes acceptable to the procuring entity, the bidding documents should be amended and all the bidders should be informed simultaneously. Importantly, because such changes may have ramifications, the time remaining before the deadline for submitting tenders when informing the bidders should be not less than one third of the time allowed for the preparation of tenders. If
this is not the case, the Procuring Entity has to extend the deadline to allow the amendment to the tender documents to be taken into account in the preparation or amendment of the bids.
Submission and Receipt of Tenders
Bidders shall submit their tenders in accordance with the instructions given in the tender documents. The submission and receipt of tenders is strictly regulated in order to ensure fairness and equal treatment of all the bidders as well as securing the bids to avoid any collusion. The following criteria must be verified when receiving a tender:\
- A tender must be in writing, it must be signed by an authorized officer of the bidder and it must be sealed in an envelope;
- A tender and the envelope it is sealed in must bear the tender number assigned by the procuring Entity and any other reference as specified in the bidding documents;
- A tender must be submitted before the deadline for submitting tenders and any tender received after that deadline shall be returned unopened or marked ―late‖ and stored unopened.
It will be important for the tender documents to state how late tenders shall be treated but whatever the case they shall be rejected.
If a tender delivered by post is inadvertently opened, the fact of that accidental opening must be recorded on the envelope by the person who opened the tender and then the tender has to be resealed and placed in the tender box immediately.
