Organisation Background

The Science for Africa Foundation (SFA Foundation) is a non-profit, public charity organisation that supports strengthens and promotes science innovation in Africa. The goal of the SFA Foundation is to address the continent’s most pressing developmental needs by generating scientific knowledge that solves problems and informs decision-making.

We serve the African research ecosystem by funding excellent research and innovation ideas; enabling interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, building and reinforcing environments that are conducive for scientists to thrive and producing quality research that generates new, locally relevant knowledge.

The SFA Foundation takes a holistic approach to the development of science. Our programmatic initiatives are crafted to cater to the entire science ecosystem and span across the value chain from early discovery sciences to translation sciences and target cross-cutting gaps.

Our commitment to strengthening the entire research ecosystem is reflected in the creation of major science and innovation programmes implemented through a well-established grant-making scheme, advocacy and promotion of scientific excellence, emphasis on intra-Africa collaboration and evidence-based policy-making mechanisms.

Position Overview

The incumbent will be responsible for supporting the procurement team on the pre-qualification process and on other procurement functions.

Key Responsibilities

• To evaluate & identify suitable suppliers for goods and services.
• Consolidate suppliers’ queries and responses for various prequalification categories, and post all  responses on the SFA Foundation website
• Review the evaluation criteria with the assistance of the SFA Foundation Procurement Committee and document the criteria for evaluation purposes.
• Document all the prequalification findings in the evaluation criteria as guided by the Procurement Committee.
• With the guidance of the Procurement officer, prepare a summary list of successful firms in each category. ( as per the agreed minimum number ), capture evaluation data per category for all the firms that participated in the pre-qualification process and document the reasons for successful and unsuccessful vendors.
• Provide evidence that the information provided by firms in the pre-qualification document is correct.
• Conduct suppliers’ due diligence and document the findings.
• Work with the procurement officer in preparing the final report on the pre-qualification process
• Notify all the applicants of the prequalification tender outcome.
• Ensure all the prequalified vendors are properly onboarded, proper contracts and SLAs issued and all vendors set in the SFA Foundation system.
• Support in the development and enforcement of travel framework agreements with prequalified vendors
• Support in sourcing and tendering processes as assigned.
• Prepare various procurement reports as assigned.
• Support the procurement team in the drafting of contracts and processing Local Purchase orders (LPOs) in the procurement system (NetSuite) and sharing fully approved LPOs/Contracts with vendors and following up deliveries.
• Follow up with users to sign off invoices, prepare payment requests and submission to finance for payment.
• Working with the Finance team in reconciliations of supplier’s invoices and providing payment remittances to vendors

Person Specifications

Academic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Purchasing and Supplies or a related field

Professional Qualifications

• Complete professional qualification in CIPS or KISM added advantage

Experience and Knowledge

• At least 3 years of relevant experience in a Procurement role
• Past experience in pre-qualification data analysis or Evaluation of supplier’s bids
• Experience in an International Not for Profit Organisation is an added advantage.
• Knowledge of accounting software preferably NetSuite is added advantage
• Proficient use of computers especially MS Office.
• Previous experience in contracting, Technical Evaluations of proposals and Prequalification of suppliers

Key Competencies

• Excellent Analytical and Numerical Skills: Identifies patterns, similarities, and differences in data/information and evaluates the implication.
• Planning and Organizing: Proactively plans, organizes workload across the team, sets up review mechanisms and monitors progress to ensure that the plan delivers on agreed guidelines.
• Attentive to Details: Thoroughness in accomplishing a task through concern for all the areas involved, no matter how small.
• Teamwork: Works as a supportive team member, recognizes opportunities to grow the team and proactively builds and manages relationships.
• Achieving results: Proactively identifies and exploits opportunities to exceed goals, and drives excellence within the team by closely monitoring execution against plans and standards to meet key stakeholder requirements.
• Commitment to continuous improvement: Identifies bottlenecks, anticipates trends and evolving needs and develops solutions/ suggestions and applies improvements.
• Resilience: Remains composed and focused during crisis/challenging periods, recovers rapidly from setbacks, and supports team to cope with pressure and change.

HOW TO APPLY

Should you meet the above requirements, please submit a cover letter and a current Curriculum Vitae not exceeding 5 pages including three professional referees to [email protected] with the name of the vacancy as the e-mail subject.

The cover letter should be no more than two pages long and explain why you are interested in this post and how your skills and experience make you a good fit. The documents should be saved in MS Word or PDF in the following format: Your First Name-Your Last Name-Document Name-Date (mmyy) e.g., Deus-Wan-CV-092022-SFA Foundation or Deus-Wan-CoverLetter-092022 -SFA Foundation.

All applications should be submitted by Friday, 17^th February 2023.