Overview

THE FIRST SLA

1.   Signed on 29 June 2005

2.  This is an incomprehensible document in that it was obviously not drafted by a person with any legal knowledge or legal drafting skills.

3. With regard to the provisions regulating the payment of suppliers and of the so-called “consultant”, the provisions are fundamentally contradictory, in that:

3.1 Clause 5.8.1, under the heading “Payments” provides that “payments of all the suppliers for all LTSM shall be made, “on the basis of a consultancy fee, paid out after completing a trench [sic] of work by the Department after placing of orders with manufacturers to the consultants who, in turn, shall pay manufacturers.” 

3.2 This provision is gibberish:  how can a supplier of stationary be “paid on the basis of a consultancy fee” for stationary he supplied, presumably on the basis of a VAT invoice for goods sold and delivered?

3.3 What is meant by the phrase in 5.8.2 “by the Department after placing orders with manufacturers (in this respect this document appears to be the product of a cut and paste exercise from a different document that bears no relation to the subject matter at hand.  When exactly is the Department to pay?

3.4 Why must the Department pay the consultant and he must in turn pay the manufacturers?

3.5 But, in any event the clause cannot be reconciled with 7.1.4. which says that: “The Department of Education agrees to pay the consultant for the procurement component 100% of the procurement order on proof of the procurement placement.”