Final External Audit for the Making Aquaculture Cooperatives in the Mekong Delta Inclusive and Bankable (MACIB) Project

 

Terms of Reference

 

Title	Final External Audit
Project	The Making Aquaculture Cooperatives in the Mekong Delta Inclusive and Bankable (MACIB) Project
Project number	24ATVN-9764
Period	15 Mar 2024 – 30 Jun 2026

1. BACKGROUND OF MACIB PROJECT

The Making Aquaculture Cooperatives in the Mekong Delta Inclusive and Bankable (MACIB) Project is an initiative (2024-2026) led by Agriterra, supported by the Dutch Government, and aligned with Vietnam’s Sustainable Aquaculture Development Plan to 2030. The project is designed to strengthen financial, governance, and policy frameworks for aquaculture cooperatives in the Mekong River Delta.

Key objectives of MACIB:

Objective 1: Professionalise the aquaculture cooperatives so that they can play a relevant role in the development of the aquaculture supply chain, based on a sound business model and a solid cooperative organisation.

• Selection process of cooperatives supported.
• Development of farmer-led businesses for cooperatives.

Objective 2: Service provision to the member farmers and in particular the contribution of the cooperative to support and guide their members in the challenges of sustainable aquaculture production.

• Develop sustainable services for cooperatives.

Objective 3: Strengthening the inclusiveness of underrepresented and underserviced women and youth and their empowerment.

• Women and youth leadership and inclusiveness.

Objective 4: Strengthening selected aquaculture cooperatives in climate-smart aquaculture.

• Training and adopting Climate Smart Aquacultural (CSA) practices and business models.

Objective 5: Lobby & Advocacy and Sector collaboration

• Policy dialogue for aquaculture cooperative development. 

 

2. SCOPE OF WORK

Project name: The Making Aquaculture Cooperatives in the Mekong Delta Inclusive and Bankable (MACIB) Project     

Project number: CCB24VN01

Project period: 15 Mar 2024 – 30 Jun 2026

Donor: Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO)

Total Approved Budget: EUR 498,343

Estimated Expenditure: EUR 498,343

The audit will be conducted in accordance with

• International Standards on Auditing (ISA),
• Vietnamese Accounting Standards (VAS) and
• The applicable audit protocol (see annex 1).

 

3. DELIVERABLES AND TIMELINE

Audit fieldwork period: 15-31 Aug 2026

Draft audit report:    15 Sep 2026

Final audit report:     30 Sep 2026

Two (2) copies of signed audited reports are to be submitted to Agriterra including audited financial statements, management letter and report on actual findings (if any).

The report is intended solely for the contracting parties involved in the Project and the RVO and should not be used by any other parties or for any other purpose.

 

4. AUDITOR QUALIFICATIONS

The selected firm must:

• Be a legally registered and licensed audit firm in Vietnam.
• Proven experience auditing NGOs and donor-funded projects. Experience with RVO-funded projects is an advantage.
• Demonstrate knowledge of VAS, ISA, and donor compliance requirements.
• Strong understanding of Vietnamese tax and accounting laws.

 

5. PROPOSAL SUBMISSION

Interested firms are invited to submit Technical and Financial proposal in English via email to [email protected], copied to [email protected] with the subject “Final External Audit – MACIB project” by 23^rd May, 2026.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for further discussion.

 

 Annex 1 – Audit protocol

 

1. Principles 

1.1. Objective 

The purpose of this protocol is to provide guidance on the scope and depth of the audit to be carried out by the auditor responsible for auditing the financial statements to be submitted by the subsidy recipient to RVO, as included in the application for subsidy determination. The financial settlement will be based on the financial statements included in the application for subsidy determination, accompanied by an auditor’s report.

 

1.2. Definitions 

• auditor: an independent registered external accountant whom the subsidy recipient has appointed to audit the request for the determination of the final subsidy amount;
• subsidy recipient: a natural or legal person or their authorised representative to whom RVO has granted a subsidy on behalf of a minister;
• object of verification: the financial accountability;
• audit opinion: a written statement by the accountant containing an opinion on compliance with the obligations and conditions laid down in the individual decision to grant subsidy (and any amendments thereto) by the subsidy recipient and insofar these have a financial effect on the financial

 

1.3. Legislation and regulations 

The following legislation and regulations apply to the audit of the financial accountability, insofar as this financial accountability forms part of the subsidy recipient’s application for subsidy determination:

• the conditions and obligations in (the appendix(es) to) the subsidy decision (or amendments thereto), insofar as these have a financial impact on the financial accountability;
• if the subsidy recipient is a contracting authority within the meaning of Section 1 of the 2012 Public Procurement Act: the 2012 Public Procurement Act, the Public Procurement Decree and the Proportionality Guide.

 

2. Audit approach

The audit of the financial statements must comply with the auditing standards that form part of the Further Regulations on Auditing and Other Standards (NV COS), which have been established by the Royal Netherlands Institute of Chartered Accountants (NBA), and with the instructions included in this protocol. The audit of the financial statements is an assignment that is carried out on the basis of Standard 800 ‘Special considerations – audits of financial statements prepared in accordance with special purpose frameworks’ and Standard 805 ‘Special Considerations – Audits of Single Financial Statements and Audits of Specific Elements, Accounts or Items of a Financial Statement’.

 

In performing the audit, the auditor determines that:

1. the information in the financial statements does not contain any material misstatements;
2. in the financial statements:
   1. no costs are included as eligible that are not eligible for subsidy;
   2. only costs incurred within the eligible subsidy period and that are borne by the subsidy recipient are included as eligible costs;
   3. if internal costs are classified as eligible costs:
      • for personnel, the hours accounted for must be related to the performance, correspond to the time registration and there must be sufficient guarantees that hours from other projects have not been shifted to the subsidised project;
      • for the use of specific equipment, the (hourly) rates charged for the use of equipment are customary within the company and do not include costs that have also been charged separately.
      • The auditor must obtain sufficient and appropriate audit evidence to determine the accuracy of the internal costs accounted for (personnel costs and internal costs for the use of specific equipment). The auditor determines, based on, among other things, his risk analysis, indications from the annual accounts audit or other investigations, how he organises his audit and how he collects sufficient and appropriate audit information. The Subsidy Audits Community (SAC) Subsidy Audit Manual is used for this purpose. The auditor may assume that the subsidy provider is aware that a tolerance of 2% is not always applicable to internal costs (personnel costs and internal costs for the use of specific equipment), but that the greater the share of these costs in the statement of accounts, the more in-depth the audit by the auditor will be.
3. if the subsidy is intended for the implementation of a project, costs and revenues have been made verifiable and are in line with the information provided for the purpose of the subsidy decision, such as the project plan with accompanying project In this case, it must be established that the performance has been demonstrably delivered, but no assessment is made as to whether the desired result has been achieved;
4. the subsidy recipient has declared all revenues, including subsidies (also subsidies made available by the subsidy-granting department), with which the programme/activity to which the subsidy relates has been co-financed, in order to prevent double financing;
5. if the subsidy recipient is a contracting authority, costs have demonstrably been incurred in accordance with procurement laws and The SAC’s Subsidy Audit Manual is used for the audit.

 

3. Reliability and materiality

Reliability concerns the degree of certainty. Materiality or tolerance concerns the required accuracy that the auditor must apply in this regard. When forming an opinion on compliance with the subsidy conditions, the auditor strives for a reasonable degree of certainty. If this concept needs to be quantified for the use of statistical techniques, a reliability of 95 per cent is applied. An unqualified audit opinion implies that, given the aforementioned reliability, the sum of the deviation and the uncertainty does not exceed two per cent of the total amount of eligible costs reported in the financial statements. The materiality thresholds listed below apply in this context to determine the scope of the audit opinion to be issued.

Materiality table	Unqualified audit opinion	Qualified opinion	Disclaimer of opinion /Adverse opinion
Errors (deviations) in the financial statements and uncertainties in the audit	≤ 2%	> 2% and ≤ 4%	> 4%

 

4. Reporting

The auditor records the results of the audit in an audit report. The most recent NBA sample text is used as a basis for this.

 

5. Review policy 

As the subsidy provider, the minister always has the option of conducting a review or to have a review by the auditor responsible for examining the information included in the application for subsidy determination, in order to verify whether the examination was conducted in accordance with the relevant NBA regulations and this audit protocol. Such reviews do not replace other audits or reviews conducted by the National Audit Office. The auditor responsible for the investigation and for providing the audit product for the application for subsidy determination agrees that the investigation files for the above-mentioned reviews will be made available in full to the reviewers for inspection. Furthermore, the auditor will provide, in writing or verbally, all information that is requested in the context of the aforementioned reviews. In this context, reference is made to the provisions in Chapter 6, Section 1, of the 2016 Accounting Act.