United States Agency for International Development, Regional Center for Southern Africa/Gaborone, Botswana; Department of State, Washington, D.C. 20521-2170

R -- ADMINISTRATIVE, LOGISTIC, MANAGMENT, TECHNICAL, AND TRAVEL SUPPORT SERVICES FOR THE SOUTHERN AFRICA REGIONAL DEMOCRACY FUND (SARDF) DUE 090498 POC Contact Point: Jay M. Bergman, Regional Contracting Officer, USAID/RCSA-Gaborone, Tel: 011-267-324449, Fax: 011-267-324486, E-mail: jbergman@usaid.gov The United States Agency for International Development/Regional Center for Southern Africa (USAID/RCSA) in Gaborone, Botswana plans to noncompetitively extend an existing contract with Datex, Inc. for two additional years, and to expand the statement of work. Under the current contract (which expires in August 2000), Datex is providing administrative, logistic, management, technical, and travel support services for the Southern Africa Regional Democracy Fund (SARDF), primarily involving the administration of a competitive grants program in democracy for indigenous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the southern Africa region. SARDF, which was authorized in 1995, and the Datex contract, which was awarded in September 1996, pre-dated USAID/RCSA's long-term strategy which was developed in 1997. USAID/RCSA now plans to revise and extend SARDF, and desires to concomitantly extend and revise the statement of work of the Datex contract. The two- year time extension is for the continuation of the same services which Datex has been provided. The revision to the statement of work reflects USAID/RCSA's experience to daye, which has shown that the indigenous NGOs often would benefit from assistance in capacity-building (beyond assistance in establishing internal control systems and policies, which is included in the current statement of work), and USAID/RCSA plans to add this as an unfunded option to the current statement of work. 48 CFR (AIDAR) 706.302-70(b)(5) permits the noncompetitive award of this additional work because it represents the continued provision of highly specialized services and award to another resource would result in substantial additional costs to the government or would result in unacceptable delays. Datex has been successfully performing the current contract for two years and has developed an in-country capacity to provide the required services, a detailed knowledge of SARDF and the indigenous NGOs working in the area of democracy, and has established good working relationships with the applicable partners, stakeholders, and customers. It is anticipated that the next round of grant awards will have periods of performance which, combined with subsequent recipient-contracted audits and grant close-out by Datex, requires contractor performance which would extend beyond the current August 2000 expiration date of the Datex contract, thus delaying award of these grants by at least 6-9 months if a new contractor were competitively selected. Replacing Datex with another contractor would thus result in substantial additional and duplicative costs and unacceptable delays in the SARDF program. Nevertheless, all interested parties may express their interest and demonstrate their capabilities, which shall be considered by USAID. Expressions of interest without a demonstration of capability will not be considered. Expressions of interest and demonstrations of capability must be received no later than 4:00pm Botswana time on 4 September 1998. No RFP will be available. See Note 22. Posted 07/17/98 (I-SN225104). (0198)

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