Call for tenders' details
Status
Submission date
16/01/2018
Answer date
18/01/2018
Language
Status
Answered
Question details
Subject
SLA System 9
Question
According to SLA08, a financial penalty of 10% of the value of the affected assignment will be applied to quotes or ‘final balances’ that include more than one arithmetical mistake. Could you clarify if an arithmetic mistake derived from another arithmetic mistake (a mistake in an operation affects a sub-total which in turn, automatically affects a total, for example) will be considered as an additional arithmetic mistake that would automatically trigger the abovementioned penalty mechanism? Could you confirm that is the deliberate will of EFSA to design a penalty system that radically turns it back on the principle of proportionality as regards the penalties on which sound governance (and the rules that it inspires such as the abovementioned Regulation on financial rules of the EU budget) is based? Could you confirm that it is the deliberate will of EFSA to design a penalty system in which two mistakes in a quote for a project of a total value of, say, €100,000, will be penalised with a sanction whose value amounts to €10,000.
Answer
18/01/2018
The objective of SLA08 is to ensure a sound and efficient administrative management, and to encourage the contractor to put in place a system that verifies the correctness of financial files before these are processed. Mistakes and inaccuracies generate rework for both parties and unnecessary administrative burden (e.g. credit notes), and shall be avoided as much as possible primarily in the interest of the contractor, as inaccurate financial files would mainly result in delayed financial transactions (e.g. payments). Mistakes would be considered on the overall total which, by definition, is the sum of individual factors. In other words, if more than one mistake is included in the same file, it would be considered only once at an aggregated level. Regarding point 2, we cannot reply because the assumption is incorrect: penalties only apply to the contractor’s service fees and not to the total value of the assignment, which also includes reimbursable costs. Therefore, the proportion presented by the requester as an argument is not reflecting reality in terms of impact and magnitude.