8. Use of consultants by the OPEC Fund and recipients Two different types of consultancy services can be envisaged in the OPEC Fund’s work: a) To supplement the OPEC Fund’s own staff. Given the desire to keep the OPEC Fund’s staff as small as possible, use of outside consultants and experts may be required occasionally to supplement the OPEC Fund’s own staff in carrying out specific tasks. For the most part, these consultants will be involved in the work connected with project identification and project preparation. When the OPEC Fund uses consultants in such cases, they are selected and engaged by the OPEC Fund. The primary consideration in the selection will be the suitability of the qualifications of the various candidates for the job to be done. Every effort will be made to use consultants from developing countries whenever possible. Whenever the need for the OPEC Fund to employ a firm of consultants arises, it (the OPEC Fund) would obtain the names of a number of qualified firms from its own roster and if need be from the roster of similar agencies and select a suitable firm, keeping in view the relevant experience of the firm, the quality of the staff proposed and the cost. b) Hiring of consultants by recipients under financing provided by the OPEC fund. In this type of consultancy, it is the recipient who is primarily responsible for the selection of consultants and for finalizing the necessary contractual arrangements. As the financing institution, however, the OPEC Fund would wish to ensure that both the procedure followed and the final selection were satisfactory. To this effect, the following guidelines will be followed: (i) Eligibility and preparation of “short lists”. The “short lists” of firms for a particular assignment will be compiled by the OPEC Fund or the recipient as appropriate using various sources of information. The OPEC Fund’s own files will be a major source but recipients may also obtain information from associations of consulting firms. If the recipient prepares the short list it would be given to the OPEC Fund for comment and vice-versa. Five to seven firms will be normally selected, not only according to capability but also with a view to ensuring the possible participation of firms from devel oping countries. (ii) Pricing of proposals. As a general rule, consultants will submit technical proposals and price details in separate envelopes. The envelope containing the price quotation submitted by the best rated consultant (based on the technical proposal) is opened and if found reasonable is then used as a basis for contract negotiations. On the other hand, if the price quotation
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