a)
i) Uncompetitive Tendering: The Public Procurement Act requires that a Procurement Entity shall procure goods, services, or works by competitive tendering except where competitive tendering is not appropriate. A competitive procurement provides the platform for alternative tenders to be obtained from interested suppliers with the objective of obtaining value for money. It includes international competitive tendering, national competitive tendering, request for quotation, and restricted tendering. If the procurement entity uses any method of procurement other than competitive tendering, that is referred to as uncompetitive procurement. The Act, however, allows such uncompetitive procurements if it qualifies under the provisions under the Act, e.g., Sole Sourcing Procurement.

ii) Unplanned Procurement: The Public Procurement Act, 2003, Act 663 states that a procurement entity shall prepare a procurement plan to support its approved programme and the plan shall indicate (a) contract packages descriptions or lots, (b) estimated cost for each package, (c) the procurement method approvals needed, and (d) processing steps and times. This plan is reviewed and approved by the Entity Tender Committee, after which it is documented and forwarded to the board as the annual procurement plan. All procurement of an entity in any fiscal year must, therefore, be in line with the Annual Procurement Plan. Any procurement outside the plan is described as unplanned procurement and could be said to be outside the approved programme of the entity.

iii) Contract Splitting: Contract splitting refers to a condition where a procurement entity divides a procurement order into parts or lowers the value of a procurement order to avoid the application of the procedures for public procurement in the Act. This is usually undertaken by procurement entities for the convenience of using the request for quotation procurement method, which is said to be more subjective compared to other competitive tendering methods.

b)
A procurement entity under Section 28A (1) of the Public Procurement (Amendment) Act, 2016 (Act 914) may, for specific and fully justified reasons, cancel the procurement proceedings before the expiry of the deadline for the submission of the tenders where:

• The entity discovers an imperfection in the wording of the request for submission of tenders, which could mislead tenderers.
• The procurement entity decides to carry out the work subject of the tender by itself.
• There is a cut in the budget intended for performing the contract.
• No bid has been submitted.
• Exceptional circumstances or a force majeure render normal performance of the contract impossible.
• The economic or technical data of the project has fundamentally changed.

c)
Report to Parties on Risks in PPP Arrangement

Risks that Trust Investors Ltd are exposed to:

1. Construction Risk: This encompasses the many issues that may be encountered during the construction phase of a project, such as cost overruns, building material defects, construction delays, planning regulation, structural integrity issues with existing infrastructure, technical deficiencies, health risk, and worksite accidents.
2. Financing Risk: This describes the risk that the full funding required for the project will not be obtained or will be obtained at interest rates that would prevent the project from achieving its expected benefits. This might be due to the circumstances of the specific parties to the arrangement (e.g., their credit status or debt limitations) or investor perceptions of the risk of a project. For example, if Trust Investors Ltd obtains a USD-denominated debt, and the exchange rate deteriorates, who bears the exchange rate risk?
3. Demand Risk: This risk relates to variability in the amount of service required or consumed by users of the Ultra-Modern Hospital. Users in this case could be the University itself, third-party users such as people living in the community, or both. If the Ultra-Modern Hospital experiences low patronage, it could pose a problem in recovering the full investment and returns.

Risks that University of Communication is exposed to:

1. Operational and Maintenance Risk: This risk encompasses a broad range of risks that exist after the Ultra-Modern Hospital facility becomes operational. These could include fees increases, shortages of materials, increases in labour costs, damage due to natural disasters, and deferred maintenance costs.
2. Residual Value Risk: This risk relates to the possible difference between the market price of the Ultra-Modern Hospital facility at the end of the PPP arrangement and the original market price expectation. For instance, if the hospital’s residual value is lower than expected due to poor maintenance, the University might incur losses.
3. Availability Risk: This is the risk that Trust Investors Ltd will not have available resources to expand in order to accommodate the increase in demand for services when the need arises better than the University could have done.