USAID/South Africa, Pretoria, Department of State, Washington, D.C. 20521-9300

R -- EASY ACCESS SYSTEM PROJECT SOL RFP 674-96-P-002 DUE 041996 POC Contact Virginia Speidel. Contact Virginia Speidel, USAID/South Africa, Department of State, Washington, D.C. 20521-9300; Telephone: (27) (12) 323-8869, Ext. 449; Fax: (27) (12) 323-6443; Sancardia Center, 9th Floor, Beatrix & Church Streets, Arcadia, Pretoria 0007, South Africa (P.O. Box 55380, Pretoria, South Africa)/ Contracting Officer, John P. McAvoy, e-mail address: jmavoy@usaid.gov. USAID/South Africa plans to solicit offers from qualified U.S. and South African firms for the Equity Access System (EASY) Project. EASY is to provide transaction specific technical assistance to small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) which are privately owned and managed. Assistance must be designed to bring SMEs, or customers, to the ''bankable'' stage by making them attractive candidates for venture capital investment and/or loan financing, and assist SMEs in sustainable development after the financial transactions have been completed. Technical services will be required for a period of three (3) years in the following three (3) geographic areas, or Clusters, in the Republic of South Africa: (1) Capetown Cluster servicing Western Cape, Northern Cape, and Free State, (2) Durban Cluster servicing Kwazulu Natal, Eastern Cape, and Mpumalanga, and (3) Johannesburg Cluster servicing Gauteng, Northern Province, and North West. USAID intends to award Cost-Sharing--No Fee types of contracts as described in Section 16.303 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). It is anticipated that the contract for each Cluster will be for a maximum of 2.5 million U.S. Dollars. Each contract will also provide 300,000 U.S. Dollars, or 100,000 U.S. Dollars annually, to cover a portion of the contractor's operating costs. A 50 percent cost sharing arrangement is required. One half of the cost for each transaction-specific technical assistance effort will be borne by either the SME customer or the contractor. USAID/ South Africa may hold a pre-proposal conference in Pretoria, South Africa. USAID encourages the participation to the maximum extent possible of Small Business, Small Disadvantaged Business, and Women-owned concerns in this activity as prime or subcontractors in accordance with Part 19 of the FAR. In this respect, it is anticipated that the prime contractor(s) will make every reasonable effort to identify and make maximum practicable use of such concerns. To help identify potential subcontractors, a list of all organizations requesting a copy of the solicitation will be included with each solicitation issued. By providing the list, USAID does not endorse the listed organizations as being capable of carrying out the activity, nor does AID verify the claimed status of the organizations. Necessarily, the list will contain the names of only those organizations known prior to the issuance of the solicitation. The preferred method of distribution of USAID procurement information is via the Internet or by request of a solicitation on a 3.5'' floppy disk (Word Perfect 5.1/5.2 format). This CBD notice can be viewed and downloaded using the Agency Gopher. The RFP, once issued, can be downloaded from the Agency Gopher, The Gopher address is GOPHER.INFO.USAID.GOV. Select USAID PROCUREMENT AND BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES from the Gopher menu. From there, choose the heading USAID PROCUREMENTS and then DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE USAID SOLICITATIONS. The RFP can also be downloaded via Anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The FTP address is FTP.INFO. USAID.GOV. Logon using the user identification of ''anonymous'' and the password is your e-mail address. Look under the following directory for the RFP: pub/OP/RFP/67496P002/sa96002.rfp. Receipt of this RFP through INTERNET must be confirmed by written notification to the contact person noted above. It is the responsibility of the recipient of this solicitation document to ensure that it has been received from INTERNET in its entirety and USAID bears no responsibility for data errors resulting from transmission or conversion processes. (0045)

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