Summary of Key Functions  

1. Provide technical lead, supervision, and guidance to the finance team on the verification of claims for payment from both national and international suppliers/contractors/consultants under Output 1 in terms of financial and safeguards-related aspects.
2. Act as technical lead in the VCEP team on all the deliverables under output 2, including advance accounts reconciliation/verification, individual consultant claims, PMOs-related claims, community development councils’ claims, and compliance with safeguards requirements.
3. Lead the development and updation of verification methodology and workflow.
4. Define the functional specifications of the VCEP Management Information System and coordinate with the MIS development team on its design, implementation, and maintenance.
5. Coordinate with stakeholders, including ADB, EA/IAs, and contractors/consultants/suppliers, at all stages of the verification process, from information collection to certificate signing.
6. Act as the focal point from the VCEP team for ADB’s Grant Financial Information Services (GFIS).
7. Support the preparation and timely submission of reports required by UNOPS or by the donor.

Detailed Description of Job Responsibilities

1. Supervise and guide the finance team in verifying claims from contractors/ consultants/suppliers and coordinate with relevant stakeholders to ensure the availability of information required for the verification process.
2. Advise on possible alternative methods to substantiate the claimed amounts in cases of missing supporting documents.
3. Determine the amounts refundable from contractors/consultants/suppliers and PMO staff against the advance payments made from project advance accounts.
4. Contribute to the draft verification reports against the claims from contractors/consultants/suppliers and ensure that financial and safeguards-related aspects are completely and accurately reflected in the reports.
5. Supervise the identification of subcontractors/sub-consultants, confirm contractors/consultants/suppliers’ bank information, and confirm that they (including their banks) do not appear on the UN Security Council Sanctions List or any sanctions list applicable under ADB’s sanctions framework.
6. Coordinate with ADB and EA, lead in matters related to taxes and retention money, and ensure that these are accurately treated in claims settlements.
7. Coordinate with ADB and facilitate decisions regarding different types of assets procured/ordered under projects, in the custody of EA/IAs, contractors, suppliers, or in transit.
8. Contribute to the designing of payment certificates, acknowledgement certificates, employers’ letters of confirmation, and advance accounts letters and ensure that these are prepared accurately, reflecting the final verification results and related decisions.
9. Ensure consistent application of agreed principles while reviewing claims and that any exceptions must be discussed and agreed upon with ADB with proper documentation.
10. Design projects advance accounts reconciliation statements and supervise the reconciliation of unliquidated balances with the physical amounts available in the banks and identification of any withdrawals or cash movements in the advance accounts after freeze periods.
11. Recommend eligible amounts for liquidation against the project’s advance accounts after verifying of supporting documents for the payments made from the project’s advance accounts and ensuring that these were not previously liquidated by ADB.
12. Recommend the net amount of pending salaries of PMO staff, outstanding amounts to individual consultants, and other PMO expenses payable from projects’ advance accounts, and also advise the suitable mechanism for payment.
13. Coordinate with ADB on the confirmation of ineligible payments, claims by PMOs, and unreconciled amounts under project advance accounts.
14. Coordinate with EA/IAs to obtain a certification of the unliquidated amounts and confirmation that the unliquidated amounts will be returned to ADB.
15. Obtain confirmation from the EA/IAs that there are no pending payments for the works and services or ineligible payments (if identified).
16. Coordinate the development of a methodology to verify compensation payments made to the project’s affected people and check compliance with other safeguard requirements.
17. Coordinate with the relevant stakeholders to ensure information availability and the implementation of the verification methodology.
18. Supervise the finance and safeguards team in the verification of the eligible compensation payments made to the affected people against safeguards through desk review and other approaches to be identified in the verification methodology.
19. Recommend paying the eligible outstanding compensations to the project-affected people to bring the projects back into compliance.

Management and Knowledge Sharing

1. Assist the SPM in defining the functional specifications of the VCEP MIS, which could be an effective tool for handling claims.
2. When required and appropriate, train team members so as to progressively delegate on future claims verification (financial-related aspects)
3. Participate in meetings with internal management, donors, EA/IAs and other stakeholders.
4. Develop tools and templates for monitoring progress against claims and reconciliations.
5. Participate in effective recruitment, work planning, performance management, coaching, and promotion of learning and development.
6. Organize, facilitate, and/or deliver training and learning initiatives for personnel on finance-related topics. Guide the team’s collection of feedback, ideas, and internal knowledge about processes and best practices and utilize them productively.
7. Ensure that all sensitive financial and other information and documents received for the purpose of the verification process are secured from unauthorized access.
8. Facilitate the engagement and provision of high-quality results and services by the team supervised through effective recruitment, work planning, performance management, coaching, and promotion of learning and development.
9. Assist the SPM in exploring and learning from the experiences of other donors who carried out similar exercises in the same/similar context.
10. Assist the SPM in reviewing the withdrawal applications, statement of expenditure and periodical expenditure forecast before submission to ADB under the VCEP project.
11. Assist the SPM in the preparation of internal/external audits and donor missions under the VCEP project.
12. Contribute to knowledge management activities to ensure that project experiences and learning are documented.

Please note that the nature of this role requires flexibility in adapting to the team’s needs since the objective of aligning Contract details, local situation and habits, local law, and other factors might generate unexpected needs.