Turkey - Study for Compliance Assessment Audit of Ministry of Environment and Forestry

Lot:7 - Governance and Home Affairs - EuropeAid FWC Beneficiaries 127054

DONWLOAD Terms of References

3.1. Number of requested experts per category and number of man-days per expert or per category
The Consultant shall compose a team of experts consist of three senior experts for the successful completion of this assignment and ensure that these experts work in cooperation with each other. 75 working days will be allocated to the team for the successful implementation of the assignment. Organization of the team members and allocation of the duties among the experts for the efficiency and success of the assignment is the responsibility and duty of the Team Leader, on behalf of the Consultant. Work-plan and time-management are under the responsibility of the consultant.
The experts and the working days of the experts including the travel days are given in the table below and an indicative implementation schedule is attached as Annex II.

3.2. Profile per expert or expertise required
The experts should work 100% of their time in the beneficiary country. The fields and the required qualifications for these tasks are defined below:
The team leader, on behalf of the Consultant will be responsible for the overall coordination and implementation of the activities as well as proper co-ordination and collaboration of the team of experts. He/she will be the primary contact for all communications, elaboration and delivery of reports, and co-ordinating all technical aspects of the contract, and will coordinate and supervise the organisation and availability of all necessary inputs in order to ensure a proper implementation of the contract.
The experts will not have to be in the beneficiary country during the up-to 6-week period between the submission of the Draft Compliance Audit Report and the completion of addressing non-compliance items by MoEF-IPA CIC, if any. The experts will not be requested to work for the beneficiary during this max. 6-week period. At the end of this period, the experts are expected to be in the beneficiary country.
The team shall be consisting of three senior experts having at least 10 years experience in the related areas. The experts shall cover the following expertise as a team;

Experts should have;

Qualifications and skills:
• University degree in engineering, economics, business administration/management, financial control, accounting or equivalent. In the absence of a university degree, in the absence of this equivalent professional experience of minimum 15 years in the relevant fields.
• Good command of written and spoken English,
• Full computer literacy.
• Recognised professional qualification/qualifications as a team(i.e. Institute of Internal Auditors, or Chartered Institute of Management Accountants or Association of Chartered Accountants or Certified Chartered Accountant or Certified Public Finance Accountant etc.) which implies a thorough knowledge of:
o Audit procedures, including planning, techniques, test and sampling methods involved in conducting audits,
o Principles, procedures and practices of internal control as well as accounting and financial records and transaction, computerised accounting and auditing record keeping systems,
Specific professional experience:
• One of the experts shall have the experience in at least one project in Financial Management and Control or Internal Audit systems in the context of EU funded programmes, preferably including Compliance Audits for DIS.
• At least one of the experts shall have knowledge of EU procurement procedures according to PRAG.
• At least one of the experts shall have knowledge on FIDIC conditions.
• Experience in practical work in a National Fund or a CFCU/Implementing Agency would be an asset.
• Knowledge of implementation modalities of any of the pre-accession financial instruments like ISPA or Structural/Cohesion Funds will be an asset.

4. LOCATION AND DURATION
4.1. Starting period
The intended commencement date of this contract is July 2010.
4.2. Foreseen finishing period or duration
The foreseen finishing date of the assignment is October 2010.
4.3. Planning including the period for notification for placement of the staff as per Art 16.4(a)
At the start of the assignment a kick-off meeting will be held at the premises of MoEF in Ankara with the participation of the representatives of Beneficiary Institutions (Operating Structure, Internal Audit Department of MoEF, National Fund and NAO Office), CFCU and EU Delegation.
Work-plan, time-management, organization of the team members and allocation of the duties among the experts for the efficiency and success of the assignment is the responsibility and duty of the Team Leader, on behalf of the Consultant.
4.4. Location(s) of assignment
The location of the assignment will be at the premises of MoEF in Ankara.

Address:
Ministry of Environment and Forestry
Söğütözü Cad. No:14/E Beştepe 06560 Yenimahalle /Ankara-TÜRKİYE

1. BACKGROUND

For the period 2007-2013, the EU financial assistance to Turkey has been provided under the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA), which will support the country’s progressive alignment with the standards and policies of the European Union with a view to membership. The IPA has been put into effect as of 01 January 2007 (Commission Regulation No 718/2007 of 12 June 2007, implementing the Council Regulation (EC) No 1085/2006 of 17 July 2006 establishing the IPA).
The decentralisation process aims at transferring to the candidate countries the management of pre-accession funds. The revised version of regulation 1605/2002 provide for additional details on the rules for decentralisation of assistance management to the beneficiary countries.
There are several possible approaches to manage EU assistance:
 on a centralised basis: all decisions are taken by the EC, acting for and on behalf of the beneficiary country;
 by shared or decentralised management:
 with ex-ante controls of the EC [DIS=Decentralised Implementation System]: decisions concerning the procurement and award of contracts are taken by the Contracting Authority and referred for approval to the EC;
 with ex-post controls of the EC [EDIS=Extended Decentralised Implementation System]: decisions are taken by the Contracting Authority without prior reference to the EC.
 by joint management with international organisations.
For IPA, decentralisation without ex-ante controls by the Commission is a pre-requisite for implementation of the related assistance. The decision of the National Authorising Officer (NAO) to accredit an Operating Structure (OS) shall be taken on the basis of an examination (the pre-accreditation review) conducted according to internationally accepted auditing standards.
The Ministry of Environment and Forestry has undergone an accreditation process in 2009 and eventually the management of the Environment Operational Programme is conferred on the Republic of Turkey with the decision of the European Commission CCI 2007TR16IPO001 of 23 July 2009 under certain conditions laid down in this Decision.
This decision shall apply to the following structures, bodies and authorities designated by Turkey for the "Environment" Operational Programme:
The Operating Structure for the "Environment" Operational Programme which encompasses:
– Ministry of Environment and Forestry, IPA Implementation and Coordination Centre as the “Operating Structure” and the “Body” responsible for the implementation of the Operational Programme;
– Central Finance and Contracts Unit as “Contracting Authority” for the Operational Programme
By this decision, four units of MoEF IPA CI Center (IPA CIC) have been accredited in 2009. These units are Programming and Project Preparation Unit, Technical Implementation Unit, Quality Assurance and Control Unit and Monitoring and Evaluation Unit.
The Decision further requires the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to comply with the recommendations and associated deadlines in order to implement them, set out in Annex I to this Decision.
Annex I to the Decision - Summary of Findings and Follow up Actions, Article 33 stipulates that; “The current version of organization chart fails to depict the shadow unit that has been established within the MoEF in order to build up the necessary contracting and tendering capacity in the IPA Coordination and Implementation Center. This Unit is expected to be adequately staffed and fully functional by June 2009.”
In line with this conditionality, necessary units were established, properly staffed and trained in order to take responsibility for these important tasks.
Until the end of 2010, the OS delegated certain functions related to the contracting and payment of IPA funds to the CFCU, but after the expiry of this date the OS would like to perform these functions itself.
In this regard, the official request for implementation of the contracting and payment functions under the DIS was made by MoEF to National Authorizing Officer (The Undersecretary of Treasury) on 20th January 2010.
In 2009, the OS has benefited from an EU Technical Assistance project for capacity building to assist the OS in preparing for accreditation of contracting and payment activities by the EC. Under the project, “Technical Assistance for Strengthening the Management Capacity of the IPA Coordination and Implementation Centre within the Ministry of Environment and Forestry”, in line with the Gap Assessment by the Consultant followed by Gap Plugging activities, extensive training programs were implemented which included full time coaching and on the job training throughout the year 2009 for the staff who would deal with procurement stage of the projects and payment functions. In this respect, according to Work Load Analysis adequate number of staff with necessary qualifications and skills has been recruited and fully trained for the shadow Procurement and Financial Management Units in order to gain experience and perform these functions in advance.
Moreover, during the past year the OS made changes and improvements in the procedures to undertake the above functions and established a better structure, so as to ensure proper segregation of duties and timely completion of the tasks related to the management of IPA funds. Furthermore, an integrated MIS system including financial and accounting modules has been established to strengthen the capacity of the OS and improve the quality of work.


1. Global objective
The global objective of this contract is performing a Compliance Audit for the National Authorising Officer in order to obtain reasonable assurance as the Operating Structure as the Tendering and Contracting Authority to meet the minimum criteria for accreditation as detailed in Annex 1 of the IPA Implementing Regulation (718/2007) and EC requirements and thus can manage IPA funds under the EOP under IPA Component III (Regional Development).
2.2. Specific objective(s)
Specific objective of this contract is to provide the NAO with a Compliance Audit Report and audit opinion based on examinations conducted according to internationally accepted auditing standards on whether the EC requirements for granting the management of IPA under DIS are met, and whether the “Accreditation package” is, at the date of the Opinion, complete and accurate and to provide the NAO with an opinion on the accreditation of the Operating Structure as the Tendering and Contracting Authority to manage IPA funds under the Environment Operational Programme.
2.3. Requested services
• Organise a kick-off meeting in the form of a workshop during which :
- the EC requirements in relation to the IPA accreditation, and
- the consultant approach,
would be exposed to the OS to be covered by the Compliance Audit.
• Examine the “Accreditation package” which has been prepared and submitted to the NAO on 20 January 2010 by the Beneficiary, obtain a thorough understanding of the organisation and procedures of the target institutions, by performing a study of any available documentation and reports in relation to Implementation of DIS in Turkey and the preparation for IPA including (not exhaustive): EC and national regulations, procedure manuals, job profiles/descriptions, organisational charts, standard forms, audit reports, etc. It is important that the consultant take good note of practices, systems, procedures, etc developed under the DIS-Turkey and which would worth be carried over for IPA during the review.
• Meet (a minimum of three meetings) with all bodies involved at the premises of MoEF with the participation of NAO Office, OS, CFCU, EU Delegation and the Consultant with utmost two (2) participants from each. Two of the meetings shall be held on the delivery of the Draft Compliance Audit Report and before the preparation of Final Compliance Audit Report in order to:
- Gain a better understanding of the situation prevailing in relation to IPA implementation and any concerns or issues deriving from the implementation of DIS-Turkey over the last years,
- Assess the ownership over the systems and procedures developed during the up-to 6-week period starting with the submission of Draft Compliance Audit Report and in which IPA CIC would address non-compliance items, in case any would be detected by the Consultant.
- Review all the manuals and other documents, procedures, systems, etc developed by MoEF-IPA CIC during the max. 6-week period,
• Document the audit work in accordance with International Standards on Auditing in order to :
- fully demonstrate the work performed,
- support the audit findings,
- justify the conclusions and recommendations,
- serve any future review by the national and / or EC auditors (make findings themselves available for EC auditor)
• Prepare and submit to the NAO Office, OS, CFCU and EU Delegation the Draft Compliance Audit Report and the Final Compliance Audit Report.
• The Consultant shall do a re-examination whether the items, which would be detected as non-compliance in Draft Compliance Audit Report, are addressed by MoEF-IPA CIC within max. 6-week period in order to comply with the criteria for accreditation.
• Incorporate the responses in the draft report and prepare and submit to the NAO Office, the OS, CFCU and EU Delegation the Final Compliance Audit Report. Findings and conclusions given in Draft Compliance Audit Report would be updated by the Consultant in Final Compliance Audit Report according to the actions taken by MoEF-IPA CIC during max. 6-week period.

The Audit opinions must be provided under international auditing standards and must involve the signature of the Opinions by an Audit Partner or similar.
2.4. Required outputs

In accordance with the requirements identified in Section 2.3, the Technical assistance team shall provide;

- A Final Compliance Audit Report clearly setting out, the extent to which the minimum criteria for accreditation as detailed in Annex 1 of the IPA Implementing Regulation (718/2007) is fulfilled and the EC requirements are met.
- An explicit audit opinion on whether the EC requirements for granting the management of IPA under DIS are met, and whether the “Accreditation package” is, at the date of the opinion, complete and accurate.
- An audit opinion to the NAO on the accreditation of the OS as the Tendering and Contracting Authority to manage IPA funds under the Environment Operational Programme,
- In the Final Compliance Audit Report, findings shall have been documented as those will support the auditing findings, and the recommendations and findings shall be justified,
- Organisation of a kick-off meeting in the form of a workshop in order to expose the methodology to be followed during the assignment,
- Organisation of a 2-days workshop in the premises of MoEF in order to share and discuss the results of the assessments and discuss about the measures that have to be taken in the short and the medium term.

PLEASE NOTE: ONLY SELECTED CANDIDATES WILL BE CONTACTED