Solicitation Number: W56KJD-15-R-0031 Notice Type: Special Notice Synopsis: SOLE SOURCE ANNOUNCEMENT 1. Introduction Regional Contracting Center- Qatar intends to award a sole source contract to FreeBalance, Arlington, VA 2. Description of Services The primary source data for Afghanistan Financial Management Information System (AFMIS) is the Ministry of Finance's (MoF) Transactional Database. The application uses a role based access method. Once a user has been authenticated, the user is passed to MoF for role based authorization. This role based authorization is accomplished in by using a Hierarchy File originating from MoF. MoF maintains user hierarchies and active users. The overall objective is that the contractor shall create complete and accurate training material. The Contractor is not required to maintain a training staff for the purposes of AFMIS Training. The Contractor shall provide detailed AFMIS User Manual for Finance and Procurement user roles. The Contractor shall provide PowerPoint slide presentations for each user role to include clear, concise information with clear legible screen prints of each screen relevant to the user for the trainers to conduct live sessions. The Contractor shall include more than one screen print of any individual screen to ensure the user can legibly see and understand the screen(s). The Contractor shall circle or highlight areas on the screen prints to emphasize the section(s) of the screen for the focus of the user. Highlighted areas shall not be a dark shade to diminish the user's ability to read or view the highlighted area. The Contractor shall update the AFMIS User Manual and PowerPoint slide presentations when any updates impact the user role(s). Training updates are required for the duration of the contract performance period(s). Upon Government request, the Contractor shall provide updates and edits to AFMIS training materials to ensure updated business processes, associated functionality, and configuration is accurately reflected in the training material. (Deliverable 9-AFMIS User Manuals, Deliverable 10-AFMIS Training Materials, Deliverable 11-Best Business Practices, Deliverable 12-Troubleshooting Guide) The NAICS code is 611430 3. Authority FAR 6.302-1, Only One Responsible Source 4. Reason for Sole Source (a) Background: FreeBalance was first contracted by the Government of Afghanistan in 2002 to computerize the operations of the Department of Treasury, under the leadership of then Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani. In the face of numerous challenges, by 2009 AFMIS was successfully deployed to all mustofiats across the whole of the country, ensuring the ability to track, monitor, and account for the entirety of treasury disbursements to Afghanistan's numerous spending units. This achievement has been universally lauded by the international donor community, and has enabled the Government of Afghanistan to demonstrate transparency and accountability in its fiduciary responsibilities to the citizens of Afghanistan and donor nations alike. (b) Justification: CSTC-A is currently operating under the AFMIS application which is commercial proprietary software owned and operated by FreeBalance. Award of a contract for another commercial software application or development of a software application would result in substantial duplication of costs and unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency's requirements as the capabilities already exist. Additionally, the timeframe to develop, test and implement a new software application which provides the same functionalities provided by the AFMIS application would take several months or years to develop. This would cause prolonged budgeting and funding delays and prevent CJ8 personnel from providing timely budget and execution reporting to higher headquarters and senior leaders. This would ultimately result in the loss of fiscal oversight and accountability and degradation of CSTC-A's operational mission in Afghanistan. The unavailability of an automated financial/program management system would require manual tracking and reporting. CSTC-A does not have the manpower available to revert to manually accomplishing the tasks which are currently automated within the AFMIS application. FreeBalance is the inventor, developer and sole proprietor of the AFMIS application. FreeBalance own the software source code and all associated documentation. IDS are the only contractor capable, qualified and legally able to deploy AFMIS application maintenance support. There are no other contractors, resellers, distributors or support channels that can legally obtain access or duplicate the software because it is protected by copyright and patent laws. 5. No solicitation package will be issued. This Notice of Intent is not a request for competitive quotations; however, interested persons may identify their interest and capability to respond to this requirement. The Government will consider responses received by 12:00 PM Eastern Time on June 10, 2015. Inquiries will only be accepted via email to
contact@example.gov and
contact@example.gov. No telephone requests will be honored. A determination by the Government not to compete the proposed acquisition based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement in the future. Contracting Office Address: BOX 539/ RCC-Q, APO, AE, 09898 Point of Contact(s): Mr. Kevin Dubose and SSG Kamena, Kenneth
