Southern Africa Development Community Secretariat – Procurement and Grants Policy (d) presence of munitions of war, explosive materials, ionising radiation or contamination by radio-activity, explosives; and (e) natural catastrophes such as floods, earthquake, hurricane, typhoon or volcanic activity. (26) “Fraudulent practice” is any act or omission, including misrepresentation, that knowingly or recklessly misleads, or attempts to mislead, a party to obtain financial or other benefits or to avoid an obligation; (27) “Framework Contract” means an agreement between the Procuring Entity and one or more contractors, which sets out terms and conditions under which specific procurements (call-offs) can be made throughout the term of the agreement. (28) “Goods contract" means a contract covering the purchase, leasing, rental or hire purchase of products, with or without option to buy. A contract for the supply of products and, incidentally, for siting and installation shall be considered a supply contract. (29) “Global price service contract” means a service contract under which the services provided are paid on the basis of the delivery of the specified outputs (result based contracts). These are commonly used for public relations contracts, studies, communication campaigns etc. (30) “Grants” means a direct payment of a non-commercial nature by the Contracting Authority to a specific beneficiary in order to implement an operation (or in some cases to finance part of its budget) in order to promote a SADC policy. (31) “Internal Tender Committee”: means the Committee appointed yearly by the Executive Secretary from staff within the Secretariat and entrusted with the authority and responsibility to oversee all procurement processes using SADC Secretariat’s financial resources, within the thresholds defined in the Procurement and Grants Regulations made under this Policy. (32) “International Restrictive Bidding” means a competitive procurement method which entails a prequalification process open to all economic operators as the first step and an invitation to bid, open only to the prequalified bidders, as the second step. The description and conditions of application of this method is to be found in the Article 22 of this Policy. (33) “Limited Bidding” means a variation of Restricted Bidding whereby the list of companies to be invited to submit bids is not determined by prequalification but through market research. The description and conditions of application of this method is to be found in the Article 23 of this Policy. (34) “Local Restricted Bidding” means a procurement method open to participation on equal terms by all providers through advertisement of the procurement on the SADC website and in a newspaper of wide circulation in the specific country or countries where services, works or goods will be rendered or consumed. (35) “Lump sum contract” means a works contract under which the Contracting authority agrees to pay the contractor a specified amount for completing the work without requiring a cost breakdown. (36) “Negotiated Procedure” means a procurement method for acquisition of goods, works and services in which one or several economic operators are invited to submit a technical and financial proposal and negotiate the technical, financial and commercial conditions of a contract. The description and conditions of application of this method is to be found in the Article 24 of this Policy. (37) “Obstructive practice” means: (i) deliberately destroying, falsifying, altering or concealing evidence to the investigation or making false statements to investigators in order to impede the SADC Secretariat’s, governmental or independent investigation into allegations 4