ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Main purpose of the role:
The Contracts Manager shall be responsible for advising and assisting the Project Management teams in the Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Commissioning phase of the Oasis Project from the commencement of the Financial Close phase defined by EPC Contract Effective Date.
Key responsibilities:
The role will support all EDF commercial aspects of projects within Africa, with a focus on Southern Africa, and supervise contract management for all necessary contracts. The position is responsible for the overall coordination of contract management across different packages, ensuring compliance with project requirements in terms of HSE (Health, Safety, and Environment), quality, planning, risks, cost, and safety.
The Contract Manager must ensure that best practices in contract management are implemented and is responsible for the contractual administration of project contracts and their associated documents.
The Contracts Manager will provide the Senior Project Manager with oversight and advisory input into project specific contract management activities during implementation, and act as a focal point for contract related matters throughout all phases of projects.
The role comprises, inter alia:
- Ensure that Contractual team is properly mapped into the project organisation.
- Ensure contractual project risks within the contractual scope are assessed, managed and mitigated and consolidated at Project Control level.
- Lead and direct all contractual aspects of executing the project including risk assessment.
- Having detail knowledge of the Power Purchase Agreement, EPC Contract, O&M Agreement and various Project Agreements/permits/consents and manage the stakeholders effectively in line with the contracts.
- Participate in the upstream contracting process to ensure an optimum adjustment of contractual commitments, and incentives on quality, deadlines, milestones, costs, risks and opportunities; in particular, challenges the scope and the target market value.
- Ensure that the schedule, deliverables, terms and conditions and technical limits contained in the contractor’s commitment scope are clear and shared with the contractors and contribute to the identification of the Project risks and opportunities related to the activities.
- Enforce the contract provisions (application of contractual mechanisms, compliance with mutual obligations, etc.) contributing to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the contract and exercises ongoing due diligence as regards any related risks.
- Contribute jointly with Work Package Leaders to steering the physical progress, based on a reporting mechanism and indicators previously agreed with the contractor, and to a periodic re-estimation of work remaining to be done to secure the cost on completion.
- Manage any potential changes in the contractor’s commitment scope. Processes and ensure the traceability of exchanges and contract-related events for the purpose of anticipating any necessary adaptations of the contract and compiling evidence to defend the company’s interests as needed in case of claims.
- Be effective in responding to the correspondences from various counter parties and ensure the interest of the Project is protected. Ensure proper review (from the contractual risk perspective) of all contractual correspondence.
- Ensure proper recording of all contractual-related correspondence and reports.
- Actively monitors the project progress in line with the contract schedule and ensure the parties adhere to the program.
- Draft the execution assessment report and organise the sharing of lessons learned from the contract.
- Verify the progress payment claims of the contractors along with the Owner’s Engineer and process the payments. Anticipate and coordinate the actions related to major claims (received or made)
- Support the Work Package Manager when required for negotiations with the Contractors
- Provide assistance regarding Contract interpretation, in cooperation with Legal support
- Gather and formalize lessons learnt and organise the sharing of them between packages to notably help anticipation and maximize homogeneity. Draft the execution assessment report
- Ensure that management of contractual interfaces between the work packages is properly done
- Liaise with the Work Package Managers of the different packages.
- Liaise and coordinate with the contract manager of the engineering contractor in terms of engineering deliverables.
- Facilitate the cross-package information flow and secure management of contractual interfaces.
- Ensure communication for contractual matters is consistent between work packages.
- Reporting in relation with the contracts, including update of the risk profile and the termination costs.
Health and Safety Responsibilities:
- Managers and supervisors carry both legal and company responsibilities for ensuring the health and safety of their employees, those under their control, and those who might be affected by the work undertaken, i.e., public, visitors and employees of other organizations. This includes ensuring risk assessments are conducted and mitigation measures are clearly communicated and understood by individuals. Managers must also ensure that individuals have the necessary understanding, competence, and application of requirements to work safely and without harming the environment.
- Employees are responsible for ensuring they fully understand the health and safety risks involved in their work activities and their responsibility to apply the controls needed to manage those risks to acceptable levels. Similarly, where work activities can have an adverse impact upon the environment, and particularly where there are legal requirements, employees are responsible for understanding those impacts and the controls they must ensure are applied.
REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS
The position reports directly into:
Senior Project Manager
The position reports functionally into:
Corporate Legal
QUALIFICATIONS AND CERTIFICATIONS
Must-have Qualifications and Certifications:
Degree in Law, Engineering and/or Construction Law or equivalent with proven experience
Preferred Qualifications and Certifications:
Professional Certification in Contracts Management is recommended.
RELEVANT EXPERIENCES
- Must-have years of professional experiences:
- Minimum 3 Years of Experience working with projects in the Renewable Energy industry, preferably in the REIPPPP.
- Track record experience in different contract management lifecycles within a project
- Demonstrate knowledge and experience in all facets of Contract Management within a project.
COMPETENCIES
Technical competencies:
Ability to understand and analyse the details of non-contractual matters such as engineering, cost control, planning and construction in order to provide relevant contractual support.
Behavioral competencies:
A collaborative, solutions-oriented approach and strong communication skills is required.
Be a team player yet be able to work independently and duly manage the workload and priorities.