In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires
"accounting officer"
means-
(a)
an accounting officer appointed as such by the Secretary to the Treasury;
(b)
a person appointed under an Act of Parliament or under an instrument of appointment made under an Act of Parliament, including the Companies Act, to perform the functions of accounting officer of a procuring and disposing entity; or
(c)
a person appointed to perform the functions of accounting officer of an entity not being of Government, to which section
2(1)(d)
applies;
"authorised officer"
means a person appointed as an authorised officer under section
8
;
"Authority"
means the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority established in section
5
of this Act;
"award"
means a decision by a Tender Board established under the Local Governments Act, 1997 or Contracts Committee provided for in paragraph (b) of section
24
, or any other subsidiary body of a
procuring and disposing entity to which a Contracts Committee or a Tender Board may delegate powers of adjudication and award within a specified financial threshold, to determine the successful bidder;
"best practices"
means the industry standards defined in this Act;
"bid"
means an offer to provide or to acquire works, services or supplies or any combination thereof, and shall include pre-qualification where applicable;
"bidder"
means a physical or artificial person intending to participate or participating in public procurement or disposal proceedings;
"bidding documents"
means solicitation documents;
"Bid Notice"
means any advertisement by which eligible providers are invited to submit written offers to provide or acquire works, services and supplies, or any combination of them in case of procurement and disposal respectively;
"competent authority"
means a Government office which has the mandate to perform a specified function;
"consultancy service"
means a service of an intellectual or advisory nature, provided by a practitioner who is skilled and qualified in a particular field or profession; and includes, but is not limited to, engineering design or supervision, accountancy, auditing, financial services, procurement services, training and capacity building services, management advice, policy studies and advice and assistance with institutional reform;
"consultant"
means an individual who, or a firm, company, corporation, organisation or partnership which provides consultancy services to a procuring and disposing entity;
"contract"
means an agreement between a procuring and disposing entity and a provider, resulting from the application of the appropriate and approved procurement or disposal procedures and proceedings as the case may be, concluded in pursuance of a bid award decision of a Contracts Committee or any other appropriate authority;
"Contracts Committee"
is the committee provided for under Part III of this Act;
"Contractor"
means a provider as defined in this Act;
"corrupt practice"
includes the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of anything of value to influence the action of a public official in the procurement or disposal process or in contract execution;
"currency point"
has the meaning assigned to it in the First Schedule;
"Defence and National Security organs"
means Uganda Peoples' Defence Forces, Uganda Police Force, Uganda Prisons Service, Intelligence Services and National Security Council;
"disposal"
means the divestiture of public assets, including intellectual and proprietary rights and goodwill, and any other rights of a procuring and disposing entity by any means, including sale, rental, lease, franchise, auction, or any combination however classified other than those regulated by the Public Enterprise Reform and Divestiture Statute, 1993;
"disposal process"
means the successive stages in the disposal cycle, including planning, choice of procedure, measures to solicit offers from bidders, examination and evaluation of those offers and award of contract;
"emergency"
means circumstances which are urgent, unforeseeable and not caused by dilatory conduct;
"emergency situation"
means a circumstance which is urgent or unforeseeable or a situation which is not caused by dilatory conduct where-
(a)
Uganda is seriously threatened by or actually confronted with a disaster, catastrophe, war or an act of God;
(b)
life or the quality of life or environment may be seriously compromised;
(c)
the conditions or quality of goods, equipment, buildings or publicly owned capital goods may seriously deteriorate unless action is urgently and necessarily taken to maintain them in their actual value or usefulness;
(d)
an investment project is seriously delayed for want of minor items; or
(e)
a Government programme would be delayed or seriously compromised unless a procurement is undertaken within the required time frame;
"foreign provider"
means a provider whose business is not registered in Uganda:
"fraudulent practice"
includes a misrepresentation of facts in order to influence a procurement or disposal process or the execution of a contract to the detriment of the procuring or disposing entity, and includes collusive practices among bidders prior to or after bid submission designed to establish bid prices at artificial non-competitive levels and to deprive the procuring and disposing entity of the benefits of free and open competition;
"guidelines"
means directives issued by the Authority under section
97
of this Act;
"industry standards"
means those standards defined and codified by internationally recognized providers' associations and professional bodies in the respective fields and includes best practices;
"information"
means written, visual, aural and electronic information;
"listed provider"
means a provider registered by the Authority in accordance with this Act;
"Minister"
means the Minister responsible for Finance;
"national provider"
means a provider registered in Uganda and wholly owned and controlled by Ugandans;
"non-consultancy service"
means a service of a skilled or a non-skilled nature, which is not a consultancy service; and includes, cleaning, security and maintenance and repair services;
"pre-qualification"
means a screening process designed to ensure that invitations to bid are confined to capable providers;
"procurement"
means acquisition by purchase, rental, lease, hire purchase, licence, tenancy, franchise, or any other contractual means, of any type of works, services or supplies or any combination;
"procurement and disposal notice board"
means the notice board of a procuring and disposing entity, which is used to display notices required to be displayed under this Act and regulations made under this Act and to display any other information relating to the procurement and disposal activities of the procuring and disposing entity;
"Procurement and Disposal Unit"
means a division in each procuring and disposing entity responsible for the execution of the procurement and disposal function;
"procurement process"
means the successive stages in the procurement cycle including planning, choice of procedure, measures to solicit offers from bidders, examination and evaluation of those offers, award of contract, and contract management;
"procurement specialist"
means a person who is engaged in a profession, occupation or calling in which recourse to procurement is directly or indirectly involved and has such knowledge and experience of the practice of procurement or who is certified or registered by a procurement professional body;
"procuring and disposing entity"
means-
(a)
a Ministry or department of Government;
(b)
a district council or a municipal council;
(c)
a body corporate established under an Act of Parliament other than the Companies Act;
(d)
a company registered under the Companies Act in which Government or a procurement and disposing entity-
(i)
controls the composition of the board of directors of the company;
(ii)
is entitled to cast, or controls the casting of more than fifty percent of the maximum number of votes that may be cast at a general meeting of the company; or
(iii)
controls more than fifty percent of the issued share capital of the company, excluding any part of the issued share capital that does not carry a right to participate beyond a specified amount in the distribution of profits or capital; and
(e)
an entity not being of Government, to which section
2
(1) (d) applies; and includes-
(f)
a commission established under the Constitution or under an Act of Parliament;
(g)
a public university and a public tertiary institution established under the Universities and other Tertiary Institutions Act, 2001;
(h)
Bank of Uganda except in exercise of the functions specified in section 4 of the Bank of Uganda Act; and
(i)
any other procuring and disposing entity as may be prescribed by the Minister;
"provider"
means a natural person or an incorporated body including a consultant, contractor or supplier licensed by a competent authority to undertake business activities;
"public asset"
means any property, tangible or intangible, owned by Government or by a procuring and disposing entity, including physical property, shares, proprietary rights and land, except land held by the Uganda Land Commission or a district land board or land which is compulsorily acquired by Government in accordance with the law;
"public funds"
means monetary resources appropriated to procuring and disposing entities through budgetary processes, including the Consolidated Fund, grants and credits put at the disposal of the procuring and disposing entities by foreign donors; and revenues generated by the procuring and disposing entities;
"resident provider"
means a provider registered in Uganda who is not a national provider;
"services"
means any object of procurement or disposal other than works and supplies, and includes professional, non professional and commercial types of services as well as supplies and works which are incidental to, but not exceeding the value of those services;
"specifications"
means the description of an object of procurement or disposal in accordance with national and international standards adopted and approved by the Authority, after consultation with the National Bureau of Standards, or other appropriate trade associations and professions, the use of which shall be mandatory in all bidding documents;
"solicitation documents"
means bidding documents or any other documents inviting bidders to participate in procurement or disposal proceedings; and includes documents inviting potential bidders to pre-qualify, and standard bidding documents;
"supplies"
means goods, raw materials, products, equipment, livestock, assets, land or objects of any kind and description in solid, liquid or gaseous form, or in the form of electricity, or intellectual and proprietary rights as well as works or services incidental to the provision of those supplies where the value of the works or services does not exceed the value of the supplies;
"urgent"
does not include circumstances that-
(a)
should have been foreseen by the procuring and disposing entity;
(b)
are a result of inadequate planning; or
(c)
are a result of delays by or within the procuring and disposing entity;
"User Department"
means any department, division, branch or section of the procuring and disposing entity, including any project unit working under the authority of the procuring and disposing entity, which initiates procurement and disposal requirements and is the user of the requirements; and
"works"
means any work associated with the construction, reconstruction, demolition, repair, or renovation of a building or structure, on the surface or underground, on and underwater, and includes the preparation, excavation, erection, assembly, installation, testing and commissioning of any plant, equipment or materials, decoration and finishing, turnkey projects, build own and operate projects, build operate and transfer projects or any arrangement of this nature, or any other form of private and public partnerships or joint development activities, all or any of which may include management, maintenance, testing, commissioning and training; as well as supplies or services incidental to those works where the value of the incidental supplies or services does not exceed the value of the works.