SECTION 76

(1) A restricted invitation to tender shall be one that is preceded by prequalification. (2) Prequalification shall be conducted for services of the same nature following a public call for bids through publication in authorized newspapers of a notice relating to a special tender or a set of tenders over a period of no more than 6 (six) months. 32 (3) The public call for bids must specify the qualification criteria, particularly the administrative conditions to ascertain the legal existence of bidders and their references in the field concerned. (4) The restricted invitation to tender shall concern at least 3 (three) bidders selected following a prequalification procedure. Otherwise, the Project Owner or the Delegated Project Owner must resort to an open invitation to tender. (5) In case of allotment, the minimum number of bidders prequalified per lot shall be 3 (three). Otherwise, the Project Owner or the Delegated Project Owner must resort to an open invitation to tender for the lot(s) concerned. (6) Where prequalification concerns a set of invitations to tender spread over the period referred to in (2) above, the open call for bids must limit the number or total volume of contracts that may be awarded to a bidder based on their capacity. (7) After the prequalification process conducted by the Project Owner or the Delegated Project Owner, a shortlist of pre-selected bidders shall be published before launching of the invitation to tender. (8) Letters of invitation to tender shall be sent to the short-listed bidders and the approved tender documents placed at their disposal under the same conditions as those provided for in Article 75 of this Public Contracts Code.