Mrs. Stella Amoah (Stella), a Chartered Accountant and Head of Internal Audit in Ningo Communications Authority (NCA) is about to tender for a contract in Internal Audit Service. A new member of her team, Mr. Stephen Appiah Coker (Stephen) has been recruited from the Internal Audit Service, who previously worked in the department responsible for devising the tender contract. Although Stephen was not involved with the tender process, his former colleague and friend is responsible for the tender specification document and the evaluation process.
Stephen had sight of some of the requirements and has offered to share with Stella information that may be of use when preparing the tender. However, this information is confidential and should not be seen by any of the tendering parties.
It will be an open tender process for both external and internal providers. Bids from external providers are being encouraged. The evaluation process has been designed with this in mind. If the contract is awarded externally, Stella will be unsure of her personal position in the organisation. She understands the use of any insider knowledge of the tendering process would be inappropriate when preparing the tender proposal, but she feels she would have a better chance of success if she used this confidential information.
Required:
Advise Mrs. Stella Amoah on THREE (3) courses of action she should take in order to act ethically in the tendering process given in the above scenario. (6 marks)
View Solution
- The information that is being made available is confidential and should not be used in her tender document. Although there is potential personal gain from using the evaluation information, she should not refer to it in the proposal.
- She should explain to the member of staff who is making the information available that his offer of assistance cannot be acted upon as this would be in breach of IFAC’s code of ethics.
- She should stop her member of staff from saying anything further about the tender. She should explain to the tendering department if she has been made aware of any additional information so that they can make it available to the other bidders.
- She must also make her employee aware that she will not be using any confidential information and that he should inform his former colleague of this. She does not want to be subject to any rumour that she had sight of any evaluation documentation as this could jeopardize her tender proposal.
- By openly stating her intended actions, she is also demonstrating a level of expected ethical behaviour to the department.
(3 points @ 2 marks each = 6 marks)