: Biomedical Research and Training Institute (BRTI)

Deadline: 17 September 2021

Background

The Biomedical Research and Training Institute (BRTI) implements a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded Laboratory Systems Strengthening Work Plan for the Ministry of Health and Child Care of Zimbabwe. The incumbent of this position will assist BRTI to enhance compliance oversight by establishing and maintaining the necessary processes to a monitor BRTI’s compliance with U.S Government Federal requirements, ensuring CDC-funded projects are conducted in accordance with the approved application and budget and the terms and conditions of award; as well as complying with BRTI institutional requirements.

Job summary

The Grants and Compliance Specialist will report directly to the Principal Investigator/Director General of BRTI. The Grants and Compliance Specialist will provide analysis, post award services, and oversight to ensure compliance with all applicable terms and conditions of award, federal laws, regulations, and policies; serve as a resource for staff of grant funded programs for fiscal and programmatic compliance matters. The position is based in Harare Zimbabwe and may be expected to occasionally travel to other provinces and districts when necessary to ensure program compliance with institutional and USG rules and regulations. The project is expected to be five years in duration, but the contract is renewable annually depending on availability of funding and performance.

Primary responsibilities

The Grants and Compliance Specialist will play an essential role in providing grants compliance and oversight. The responsibilities of the Grants and Compliance Specialist are as follows: Ensure effective and efficient management of all grants according to donor/funder requirements and BRTI policies/procedures; Ensure quality preparation of grant proposals, budgets, reports, and other design documents for BRTI and major funders; Reviewing, evidencing, and verifying payment requests, ensuring all costs incurred are reasonable, allowable, and allocable with substantive supporting documentation; Maintaining the schedule of reporting for all grant-funded programs. BRTI is responsible to submit a variety of programmatic and financial reports at specific times during the life cycle of a grant award. The Grants and Compliance Specialist ensures that all reports are accurate, complete, and submitted on time.

Facilitates review and revision of BRTI’s finance, management and operations standard operating procedures (SOPs) on an ongoing basis; Ensure ongoing preparedness for annual external audits and timely submission of audit reports to US Office of Grants Services (OGS); Review all payments issued under the project (including those made to vendors, grantees, consultants, subcontractors, and staff) and ensure that they are issued in compliance with BRTI financial accounting policies and procedures and that they are in line with the project budget; Ensure timely compliance with all Zimbabwe tax obligations statutory returns; On a quarterly basis, review all project files (Financial, HR etc) and share with BRTI management a performance report that indicates areas of strength and weaknesses and recommendations that need improvement. These reports to be kept on file; Review all contracts and Service Level Agreements to confirm existence of genuine business terms; Develop support and reference tools to facilitate effective implementation of compliance goals; Resolve issues raised on external audit management letter for the previous year’s Uniform Guidance Single Audit; Conduct investigations as and when requested by the Board or Executive Management Team and make routine follow ups on audit engagements, at least once annually before commencement of next audit; Ensure proper inventory management of project assets and maintain control over project property through a log that indicates the property, value of property, condition, and location; Conduct routine compliance reviews of grant programs. Establish and maintain electronic and hard copy files for each grant-funded project to be used for tracking and reporting purposes; Assist in preparations for external monitoring visits, reviews, and audits, and cross-site evaluations and participate as appropriate; Informing CDC of any problems or concerns regarding compliance; Monitor Subawards - ensure subrecipient monitoring procedures are compliant with federal and other applicable regulations and are consistent with sound business practices. Monitor subrecipient compliance with federal regulations and the requirements of their subrecipient agreements through site visits, audits, and other mechanisms applicable to subrecipient monitoring. Recommend actions necessary to resolve issues/concerns.

Qualifications, knowledge, skills, and abilities

The successful applicant will have extensive experience in federal grant management including procurement and financial management on donor-funded projects. The ideal candidate will be detail oriented, with exceptional verbal and written skills. She/he must have accounting experience as well as management of large and complex budgets. She/he will be a senior person who directly engages in and performs work in addition to overseeing and delegating it within the team. Specific requirements include: Master’s degree in Finance, Business Administration, Accounting, Risk Management, Economics or a related field; At least 5 years’ experience in managing USG federal grants management, finances and preferably on CDC/PEPFAR or USAID-funded program, as well as accounting, financial management and procurement systems, and monitoring and managing budgets; Experience and familiarity with Pastel, or a similar accounting program is highly desired; Strong attention to detail and ability to meet deadlines; Excellent communication skills so that non-finance staff understand the budget and expenditures and can link the implementation of their technical work to finance and ensure that the project remains within the budget.