Description

The general objective of this Project was to contribute to institutional, administrative and growth-sustaining structural reforms in Greece, with a view to enhancing competitiveness, productivity, sustainable growth, job creation, and investments. The specific objective of this Project was to provide support on strengthening the Greek General Secretariat for Public Private Partnerships regarding investment and public procurement through the definition and implementation of appropriate processes and methodologies by taking into account good practices of and lessons learned by other countries in addressing similar situations.

The deliverables for this Project, as described in the Request for Service of the Structural Reform Support Service (SRSS), were the following:

1. Deliverable 0: Kick off meeting and indicators
2. Deliverable 1.1: Outline of Value for Money (VfM) assessment methodology
3. Deliverable 1.2: Technical report on VfM assessment guidelines
4. Deliverable 1.3: Organisation of two (2) one-day VfM training/dissemination workshops of the VfM guidelines in Greece for public authorities, in collaboration with the PPP Secretariat for up to [30] individuals per workshop.
5. Deliverable 2.1: Technical report on due diligence and project preparation package
6. Deliverable 2.2: Technical report on the preparation of the procurement documentation and guidance
7. Deliverable 2.3: Technical report on the provision of support in monitoring the Project and transfer of know-how
8. Deliverable 2.4: Final report on the technical support provided

LDK Consultants was responsible to carry out only the technical/engineering aspects of the work in each respective Deliverable, given that all deliverables include technical/engineering, legal, financial and other aspects. For each Deliverable, the LDK Consultants worked together with all other project parties, meaning the Company as well as other subcontractors, in order to ensure the expected quality and completeness of work.
LDK Consultants assisted PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) throughout the Project’s duration and per Deliverable in the all project activities.

Outcome 1: Adoption of a Value for Money (VfM) Assessment Guide by the Greek authorities

Deliverable 1.2: Technical report on VfM assessment guidelines
LDK Consultants assisted PwC with the following tasks:

1. Developing a comprehensive and coherent set of guidance materials for the conduct of VfM assessment, which shall include the following components:

• ex-ante qualitative VfM methodology and guidelines in a checklist form, and associated application guidance, designed to test (and re-confirm) the potential of a PPP project to deliver VfM at appropriate stages. This should take into account public and private sector capacity issues, the nature of the project and services and the context in which it might be delivered as a PPP. The criteria might consider both constraining and motivational criteria for using a PPP approach;
• a risk matrix quantifying the risk transferred to the private partner, based on international experience, and any relevant data from the Greek market.

Outcome 2: Enhancement of the public authorities’ procurement and monitoring capacity

Deliverable 2.1: Technical Report on due diligence and project preparation package
LDK Consultants assisted PwC with the following tasks:

1. Preparing a generic report identifying the legal and technical issues that need to be addressed by public authorities as part of the necessary due diligence of a PPP project. These include:

• Defining the procurement process and associated timetable;
• Reviewing of the land ownership and cadastral situations;
• Identifying and detailing the description of necessary processes and approvals required for the PPP project.

2. Developing a generic Project Information Memorandum (PIM), detailing what a PIM should include: chapter titles, overview of each chapter’s contents (e.g. brief introduction on Greece, project location, main technical requirements for the facilities, energy and resource use efficiency, status of land acquisition and site permission process and envisaged stage of permission process for the procurement process, scope of the contract and estimated capex, indicative transaction structure highlights, overview of the Public Investment Program of the Ministry of Development and Investments, summary of funding flow available for the project, brief overview of legal and legislative framework, envisaged procurement process and overall timetable).

3. Developing two project-specific PIMs for the Chania and the Rhodes schools’ projects that can be used to promote and present the investment opportunity. All relevant available information will be provided by the PPP Secretariat. The PIMs consist of a brief description of the projects and their key features, including:

• Status of land acquisition and site permission process and envisaged stage of permission process for the procurement process (including brief description of site, and access);
• Envisaged procurement process and overall timetable;
• Any other information that the Contractor may consider relevant and not confidential.

4. Developing generic guidance on project preparation: Development of generic guidance on all the issues addressed at this stage, for use by other municipalities/public authorities on similar projects, to the extent possible taking also into account the VfM methodology under Component 1.

5. Producing a detailed generic manual on the competitive dialogue process.

Deliverable 2.2: Technical report on the preparation of the procurement documentation and guidance
LDK Consultants assisted PwC with the following tasks:

1.    Preparing generic draft procurement documents: Preparation/drafting of a complete set of tender documentation. The tendering documents to be developed will include all documents for all the stages of the tendering process under the competitive dialogue procurement process.

2.    Preparing a generic draft partnership agreement and all of its annexes including without limitation:

• Compensation procedure;
• Payment mechanism;
• Technical requirements;
• Services specifications and performance requirements;
• Insurance requirements.

3.    Preparing a generic manual on the project data room:

• Preparing a manual, detailing the structure the processes relating to the data room, including a list of data to be included in a project data room;
• Setting up structure and rules for operating the project data room and ensuring transparency and confidentiality (where required) and that it is in line with local procurement rules.

4.    Providing generic guidance on evaluating by developing an evaluation guide. The evaluation guide went through all evaluation criteria (technical, environmental, legal/institutional, and financial) of the Request For Proposal and proposed a scoring methodology as objective as possible, so all members of the evaluation team can apply it without subjectivity.

Deliverable 2.3: Technical report on the provision of support in monitoring the project and transfer of know-how
LDK Consultants assisted PwC with the following tasks:

Specifically, regarding Task 2 “Supporting of know-how transfer” LDK Consultants prepared the respective workshop materials (leaflets, presentations etc.):

1.    Preparing a monitoring strategy report:

• Developing a generic monitoring strategy report to be used by municipalities/public authorities;
• Creating a contract management manual, focussing on the Partnership Agreement and the obligations of the contracting authority.

2.    Supporting know-how transfer:

• Identifying training requirements based on the nature of the required management. LDK Consultants presented a proposal for a training program according to the training requirements identified, in cooperation with the PPP Secretariat;
• Holding one 2-day workshop (for up to 30 attendees) in the Municipality of Chania and one 2-day workshop (for up to 30 attendees) in the Municipality of Rhodes elaborating on the technical specifications, on the payment mechanism and on the insurance clauses of the generic documentation;
• Holding one 2-day workshop (for up to 30 attendees) in the Municipality of Chania and one 2-day workshop (for up to 30 attendees) in the Municipality of Rhodes elaborating on legal and financial clauses of the generic documentation;
• Holding one 2-day workshop (for up to 30 attendees) elaborating on the technical specifications, on the payment mechanism and on the insurance clauses of the generic documentation and one 2-day workshop (for up to 30 attendees) elaborating on legal and financial clauses of the generic documentation in Athens, addressed to the PPP Secretariat staff and other stakeholders specified by the PPP Secretariat;  
• Two 2-day seminars (for up to 30 attendees), addressed to a wider public sector audience, will be held in order to disseminate the experience and the know-how acquired;
• Preparing a guide with best practices and a presentation that will be used in conferences regarding the specific PPP project.

Deliverable 2.4: Final report on the technical support provided
LDK Consultants assisted PwC to prepare a final report on the main results of this assignment.