The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) is an independent statutory agency responsible for planning the Basin’s water resources to ensure all decisions take into account the Basin as a whole. The Murray-Darling Basin itself represents the largest and most complex river system in Australia and is the nation’s largest area for agricultural production, producing about $8 billion in irrigated agriculture and $16 billion in dryland agriculture every year. In addition to agriculture the basin is also home to more than 2 million people who rely on it for their vital source of water and home to over 75,000 First Nations people. As such, decisions regarding the Basin require intensive stakeholder engagement and need to be governed under a number of programs that address the various elements to be managed. For the MDBA this is covered under a series of programs and sub programs broken out into River Management, Natural Resource Management and an Enabling Program
This week, we look at a request for Expressions of Interest (EOI) issued by the MDBA seeking an Independent Review of these programs. The MDBA would like the services of an experienced consultancy firm to undertake expenditure, prudency and efficiency assessments of major surface and ground water management infrastructure and environmental and research programs to ensure they are operating as required.
This opportunity is being conducted as a two stage procurement with only companies being shortlisted from the EOI process being invited to the second stage tender process, which is expected to be issued by 1 Nov 21. Note that evaluation is based on three equally weighted criteria of Proposed Methodology, Experience and Expertise and Value for Money.
Closing date for the EOI is Monday 25 October 2021
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