Answering a public tender in Togo: the documents to gather

A well-priced offer can be set aside without being read. Not out of ill will: because an attestation is missing, because a document is more than three months old, or because the technical and financial envelopes were not separated as the tender required.

Here is what we check systematically before submitting.

The administrative file

This is where most bidders lose. The documents required vary by contracting authority, but the core is stable:

• Trade register (RCCM) — an up-to-date copy; the company name must match the one on the offer character for character;
• Tax identification number (NIF);
• Certificate of non-bankruptcy;
• Tax clearance certificate, currently valid;
• CNSS certificate, proving social contributions are up to date;
• Criminal record extract for the manager, often required to be less than three months old;
• Articles of association and identity document of the signatory.

Validity dates are the leading ground for rejection. A tax certificate issued four months ago for a file that requires three counts as a missing document. Keep these documents together in a standing file and renew them every quarter, independently of any ongoing tender: the submission deadline is rarely compatible with the time it takes to obtain a certificate.

The technical offer

It demonstrates that you know how to do the work, not that you are cheaper.

Verifiable references carry weight. A useful reference gives the client's name, the nature of the supply, the amount and the year — and it can be confirmed by a contact. Three precise references are worth more than fifteen unverifiable lines.

Technical datasheets for the products offered must match the specification point by point. If a specification cannot be met exactly, it is better to offer an equivalent and say so than to leave it out: a reasoned equivalence gets examined, a discrepancy discovered at opening eliminates you.

Resources: staff assigned, equipment available, storage capacity, committed delivery times. This is where a local supplier gains the advantage over a distant importer.

The financial offer

A schedule of unit prices, a summary, and above all: the same structure as the one requested. Renumbering the lots or merging two lines is enough to make offers incomparable — and an incomparable offer is an offer set aside.

Check that the amount in figures matches the amount in words, the VAT, and the total carried over to the submission form. A discrepancy between two pages of the same file forces the committee to decide, and it rarely decides in your favour.

The form of the submission

The tender specifies the number of copies — often one original and two copies — the binding, and the separation of envelopes. These rules are not formalities: they guarantee that the price stays anonymous until the technical opening, and a badly assembled envelope compromises the whole procedure.

Submit the day before. On the day itself, a traffic jam in Lomé costs you a contract.

Delivery times, committed

A stated lead time is binding. For equipment in stock, we state 48 hours. For equipment to be imported, two to six weeks depending on the nature of the goods — and that period runs from notification, not from the order.

Announcing three weeks for equipment that takes six is the surest way to win a contract and lose a client.

What TBS can take on

TBS Distribution S.A.R.L takes part in public and private tenders and consultations across its four branches: an up-to-date administrative file, technical and financial offers, standardised invoices and verifiable references.

The Studies & Consulting branch also works on your behalf: assembling the file, gathering the documents, drafting the technical offer. For an organisation answering its first tender, that is often the difference between a file set aside and a file examined.