Assignment on Negotiation NEGOTIATION

On March $2023,$ Mwanza District Council floated a tender for Construction of Various District Council Roads by using International Competitive Bidding method. After evaluation it was realized that Xin$-$Jiang Construction Company Ltd$,$ was the Lowest Evaluated Bidder and the Evaluation Committee recommended that the company should be awarded the contract prior to negotiation on the following area:

$$ Resource Mobilisation Period $($i$.$e Personnel and Equipment$)$

$$ Terms of Payment

$$ Employment of Local Technicians in the execution of the Contract

$$ Extension of work to accommodate Boma Road from Daladala Stand Regional Commissioner's Office including the two junctions$-$ LETI road and Gumzo Primary School road and respectively.

Upon submission of the evaluation report, the Tender Board approved the report and instructed PMU to appoint a Negotiation Committee. The Committee of $3$ members was appointed and approved following the PPA $2011$ procedures. However, the Committee did not prepare the Negotiation Plan that was supposed to be approved by the Tender Board and instead they believed in their technical experience on construction works, financial management and international marketing.

Later on the Committee went to the PMU office and took the contacts details of Xin$-$Jiang Construction Company Ltd and then decided to communicate with the Bidder without seeking approval and agreed with the Bidder that negotiations should be held in Wuhan$-$China. The Bidder promised to cover all the costs for the tickets.

A week before the travelling date, the members of the committee received the tickets from the bidder, organised for a travel permit and other logistics of transportation and accommodation allowances successfully. The DED instructed them to return with a good procurement deal that will ensure the Council gets value for money for the benefit of the Mwanza Citizens. The date of travel arrived and the committee had a long flight of $10$ hours non$-$stop from Dar$-$Es$-$Salaam to Beijing where they were supposed to take another flight to Wuhan.

However, upon arrival the committee was surprised to see their hosts waiting for them there at Beijing instead of Wuhan and after serious discussion the hosts told them that it was good to drive from Beijing to Wuhan so that they $($i$.$e committee$)$ could get a chance of seeing the beauty of China. After a long drive they arrived at Wuhan in late hours and the members of the committee were totally exhausted with the journey so they went to sleep very late. The hosts arranged accommodation for each member in a different Hotel. Early in the morning their hosts came and told them that they have organised for a tour for them to a cultural festival so they should get prepared and go there. They went there, had drinks, enjoyed the local music and come back late while on the next day morning at $8$:$00$am they were supposed to participate in the negotiation meeting.

The members of the committee had no time to prepare themselves prior to negotiation meeting as they did not had time to settle down since their arrival at China. The committee had not discussed their negotiation plan and strategies and to make matters worse they did not even had a backup plan from the beginning when they were still at home. During the negotiation meeting the members of Negotiation Committee were sleepy, could not concentrate due to being exhausted and there were occasions where their hosts would speak in Chinese of which the committee could not understand. At the end of the negotiation meeting the committee failed to come up with a value for money deal as were instructed by the DED before departure.

REQUIRED

Analyse the case strategically on the following:

$$ Deliberate on what went wrong with the negotiation $($the mistakes observed$),$

$$ Discuss on what should have been done by the Negotiation Committee and

$$ Advice on what should be done by the management of Mwanza District Council.

Propose the heading for this task.