SOLICITATION NOTICE
R -- Staffing and Management of Talent Vendors - Addendum A - Price Schedule - Addendum B - Past Performance References
- Notice Date
- 9/7/2012
- Notice Type
- Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
- NAICS
- 711510
— Independent Artists, Writers, and Performers
- Contracting Office
- Broadcasting Board of Governors, Director, Office of Contracts, Office of Contracts (M/CON), 330 C Street, SW, Room 4300, Washington, District of Columbia, 20237, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20237
- Solicitation Number
- 090712MA
- Archive Date
- 10/5/2012
- Point of Contact
- Mary Ann Amps, Fax: 305-437-7046, Wayne D Greene, Fax: 202-260-0855
- E-Mail Address
-
mamps@ocb.ibb.gov, wgreene@bbg.gov
(mamps@ocb.ibb.gov, wgreene@bbg.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Addendum B - Past Performance References Addendum A - Price Schedule (i)THIS IS A COMBINED SYNOPSIS/SOLICITATION FOR A COMMERCIAL ITEM PREPARED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE FORMAT IN SUBPART 12.6 AS SUPPLEMENTED WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION INCLUDED IN THIS NOTICE. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY SOLICITATION; PROPOSALS ARE BEING REQUESTED AND A WRITTEN SOLICITATION WILL NOT BE ISSUED. (ii) Solicitation No. 090712MA is issued as a Request for Proposal (RFP) and a contract will be awarded using the contracting by negotiation procedures in FAR Part 15. (iii) This solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect from the Federal Acquisition Regulations 2005-060, dated August 27, 2010. The contractor shall provide the Contract Line Items as shown in the uploaded Item Description Pricing. (iv) The North American Industry Classification Systems (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 711510. (v). The BBG is seeking a company capable of locating, hiring, and managing a team of 10 or more journalists (stringer reporters) in major cities in Cuba, including Havana and Santiago de Cuba, who would provide regular local news and feature reports. (vi.)The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is an executive branch U.S. Federal Government agency that oversees U.S. broadcasting of news and information to audiences around the world. BBG includes the Voice of America (VOA) and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), as well as grantee entities Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and the Middle East Broadcasting Network (MBN). Together, VOA and OCB distribute programming in English and 42 other languages to an estimated weekly audience of 175 million people. These languages include English, Afan Oromo, Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Bosnian, Burmese, Cantonese, Creole, Croatian, Dari, French, Georgian, Hausa, Hindi, Indonesian, Khmer, Kirundi, Kinyarwanda, Korean, Kurdish, Lao, Macedonian, Mandarin, Ndebele, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Shona, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Tibetan, Tigrigna, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek and Vietnamese. BBG's programming is delivered using almost every available platform including, but not limited to, radio, television ("TV"), Internet, and mobile phone technology. The BBG is seeking a company capable of locating, hiring, and managing a team of 10 or more journalists (stringer reporters) in major cities in Cuba, including Havana and Santiago de Cuba, who would provide regular local news and feature reports. OCB's requirements for the journalists are as follows: •Conduct interviews and provide fair, accurate, balanced and objective news and feature stories in Spanish for broadcast on radio, television, mobile and web as required, including breaking news, and deliver news reports and work on short deadlines. •Must be able to gather photographs and video, and write, narrate or film (video) verifiable information (by two sources or based on eyewitness reports); •Must be able to both pitch their own stories and respond to the needs of the BBG newsrooms. Must have initiative and develop news stories and ideas independently. Must generate original stories and establish a network of sources both in government and outside official channels in order to report on a wide variety of subjects. Stories regarding politics and economics are of particular interest as are those of the dissident movement. The stringers must also be able to identify and cover stories related to civil society, social issues, sports and entertainment; •Must have a phone and know how to communicate via SMS, twitter and how to send pictures and videos. Must know how to navigate on social media; •Must also comply with journalistic guidelines and standards set by OCB; •Stringers should preferably have journalism degrees. If they are experienced in the field of journalism without the degree, OCB will review what their prior experience is and what media association they provided information for; •Must be able to show valid identification with current and correct information even if they go by a pseudonym, and may not work as editors of Cuban state-run media organization and programs or be affiliated in any way with the Cuban Government or the Cuban Communist Party. The Contractor must provide OCB with at least five stories per week, depending on the news cycle. Contractor must have in place adequate procedures to verify reports (double sourcing) before stories are transmitted to BBG. The journalists under employment need not be full time employees of the interested party (i.e. they can be freelancers) but the company will handle all necessary paperwork and payments related to the employment of said journalists, including taxes, tariffs, etc. In addition, Contractor shall be responsible for the accuracy and technical quality of the reports. BBG shall own the copyright to all materials and reports provided by the stringers. All stringer reports must be approved by OCB to ensure they meet journalistic and technical standards. Contractor shall not invoice for any reports which fail to meet OCB journalistic criteria and technical standards. Additional information: BBG holds a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control to engage the services of Cuban nationals in Cuba for the purpose of preparing news-related materials. The BBG does not currently employ any stringers (i.e. freelance journalists) in Cuba; however, the agency could provide the Contractor with a list of potential candidates for consideration. (vii) The Base Period of Performance is September 25, 2012 - October 31, 2012 with eight (8) six month option periods. Delivery of stories shall begin 7 days after award. (viii) The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provision FAR 52.212-1 Instruction to Offerors-Commercial Items, applies to this solicitation. FAR provisions and clauses may be obtained from the Internet Web address at: http://acquisition.gov/far/index.html. (ix) The FAR provision 52.212-2, Evaluation - Commercial Items, applied to this Solicitation. The Government will award a Commercial Item, Firm-Fixed-Price, contract resulting from this RFP to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the RFP will be most advantageous to the Government, based on price, technical, past performance, and other factors in the solicitation. When combined, technical evaluation factors are significantly more important than cost/price. The following factors listed in order of importance shall be addressed in the technical proposals and shall be used to evaluate proposals: 1) Capabilities Statement - The Offeror shall provide a description of their organization and its demonstrated capabilities in performing the service requirement. The "Capabilities Statement" must include, at a minimum, the following: 1. State your business size (i.e., small, large, etc.) and ownership. Must have the capability of delivering original stories on a 24 hour per day, seven day per week basis in Spanish to the BBG; 2) Management Approach - The Offeror shall provide a description of the approach that they will take to meet the requirement; Clearly describe your ability to provide the journalists in the above region, including the procedures that you would employ to ensure that the stories you would provide are factual and "vetted" prior to transmission (i.e., "double sourcing"), Also, state your ability to deliver stories in Spanish; and the terms and conditions that you seek and any minimum work period for the journalists, if any; 3) Contractor Qualifications - The Offeror shall provide their understanding of the requirements and ability of the Offeror to provide the required services. 4) Past Performance - The Offeror is required to provide no more than three (3) references from previous customers for same or similar services to the requirement within the last five (5) years of the date of this Solicitation. Provide evidence of specific examples of your successful past performance, with a desired minimum of three (3) years of experience providing journalistic services in the region of Central America and the Caribbean. Offerors shall provide the names of three (3) clients and the following information: (i) client's name, address, and name, email and telephone number of contact person; (ii) dollar amount of the contract; (iii) current term of the contract; and (iv) brief description of the work performed. The Offeror shall use the form uploaded to the FedBizOpps with this combined synopsis/solicitation entitled "Addendum B - Past Performance References" to provide the information. Pursuant to FAR 15.305(a) (2) (iv), in the case of an Offeror without a record of relevant past performance or for whom information on past performance is not available, the Offeror will not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance; and 5) a separate Price Proposal showing a breakdown of the price for the above CLIN (Price) Prices for all of the listed CLIN shall be noted in English and United States dollars on form uploaded to the FedBizOpps with this combined synopsis/solicitation entitled "Addendum A - Price Schedule". Offerors are cautioned that failure to address each of the above factors may deem their proposal unacceptable. (x) Offerors shall include a completed copy of the provision FAR 52.212-3 Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items with its offer. Proposals must also include contractor's DUNS Number, prompt payment terms, and correct remittance address, if different from mailing address. The contractor must be registered on-line with the System for Award Management (SAM) formerly the CCR Web site at: https://www.sam.gov/portal/public/SAM/. The successful Offeror will be required to complete and submit an ACH form, for Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), to the Contracting Officer before submitting their first invoice. (xi) The FAR clause 52.212-4 Contract Terms and Conditions-Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition with addendum to the clause. The addendum is as follows: CONTRACTING OFFICER REPRESENTATIVE The Contracting Officer will appoint by letter a Contracting Officer Representative (COR), who will have the responsibility of ensuring that the work conforms to the requirements of the contract and such other responsibilities and authorities as may be specified in the letter of authorization or this contract. It is understood and agreed, in particular, that the COR shall not have authority to make changes in the scope or terms and conditions of the contract unless and only to the extent that such authority is specified in the letter of authorization or the contract. THE RESULTANT CONTRACTOR IS HEREBY FOREWARNED THAT, ABSENT THE REQUISITE AUTHORITY OF THE COR TO MAKE ANY SUCH CHANGES, IT MAY BE HELD FULLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY CHANGES NOT AUTHORIZED IN ADVANCE, IN WRITING, BY THE CONTRACTING OFFICER, MAY BE DENIED COMPENSATION OR OTHER RELIEF FOR ANY ADDITIONAL WORK PERFORMED THAT IS NOT SO AUTHORIZED, AND MAY ALSO BE REQUIRED, AT NO ADDITIONAL COST TO THE GOVERNMENT, TO TAKE ALL CORRECTIVE ACTION NECESSITATED BY REASON OF THE UNAUTHORIZED CHANGES. (xii) FAR clause 52.212-5 Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders-Commercial Items, applies to this solicitation by reference and proposed subsequent contract as well as the following clauses contained within FAR clause 52.212-5: 52.203-6 Restrictions on Subcontractor Sales to the Government; 52.204-10 Reporting Executive compensation and First-Tier Subcontract Awards; 52.209-6 Protecting the Government's Interest when Subcontracting with Contractors Debarred, Suspended, or Proposed for Debarment (Dec 2010), 52.209-10 Prohibition on Contracting with Inverted Domestic Corporations; 52.219-8 Utilization of Small Business Concerns; 52.219-28 Post Award Small Business Program Representation; 52.222-3 Convict Labor; 52.222-19 Child Labor-Cooperation with Authorities and Remedies; 52.222-21 Prohibition of Segregated Facilities; 52.222-26 Equal Opportunity (E.O. 11246); 52.222-35 Equal Opportunity for Veterans (38 U.S.C. 4212); 52.222-36 Affirmative Action for Workers with Disabilities (29 U.S.C. 793); 52.222-37 Employment Reports on Veterans (38 U.S.C. 4212); 52.222-40 Notification of Employee Rights Under the National Labor Relations Act; 52.223-18 Encouraging Contractor Policies to Ban Text Messaging with Driving; 52.225-13 Restrictions on Certain Foreign Purchases and 52.232-33 Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer-Central Contractor Registration (31 U.S.C. 3332) (xiii) Additional FAR provisions and clauses incorporated by reference and applicable to this solicitation and the proposed subsequent contract are: 52.232-18 Availability of Funds and 52.237-3 Continuity of Services (xiv) A Defense Priorities and Allocations System (DPAS) assigned rating is not applicable to this acquisition. (xv) Notice of Delay- If the event the Contractor becomes aware of a potential delay; the Contractor shall immediately notify the Contracting Officer and COR by via email. Such email shall include the nature of the delay and whether it will have any impact (positive or negative) on the Contract. (xvi) There are no additional contract requirement(s) necessary for this acquisition other than those consistent with customary commercial practices. NOTE: See government-wide numbered notes 13 and 25. (xvii) Failure to provide any of the above-required CLIN may result in the rejection of your proposal. Full text of all FAR clauses and provisions are available electronically at the following Internet address: (http://www.arnet.gov/far). Proposals shall be in writing and must be signed by an official who is authorized to bind the organization. Fax or Oral proposals will not be accepted. Questions must be submitted in writing to mamps@ocb.ibb.gov. Written questions must be submitted by 2:00 p.m. EDST on Friday, September 14, 2012. Technical proposals shall be submitted with an original and one (1) copy. Price proposals shall be submitted with an original and one (1) copy. Proposals may be sent via email before the closing deadline below. Proposals are due to MaryAnn Amps, before 10 a.m. EDST on Monday, September 24, 2012. Proposals may be submitted via email at mamps@ocb.ibb.gov. All responsible sources may submit an offer that will be considered by the Agency.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/BBG/ADM/MCONWASHDC/090712MA/listing.html)
- Record
- SN02872213-W 20120909/120908000055-53ff59bed24d93108d5bbc9737fa5f0e (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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