5.2. Legal and Governance

The Legal and Governance unit’s (Legal unit) key responsibilities focus on strategic support to the MQA for legal, compliance and governance matters summarised below:

• drafting, monitoring and training on all MQA agreements; • ensuring the MQA complies with all relevant legislation; • identification, management and mitigation of all legal and governance risks; • development and maintenance of all stakeholder/customer relationships; • tracking and monitoring of service provider performance against agreed obligations; and • professional legal service to the organisation.

The Legal unit attends to numerous queries which ranges from drafting of agreements, drafting of legal opinions and assisting in fraud investigations. The unit will continue to provide services in a professional manner, particularly concentrating on legal risk prevention and mitigation through the hosting of training workshops and the development of effective legal and governance framework.

5.2.1. CONTRACT MANAGEMENT

The unit’s contract management role encompasses the effective contract administration and the management of contracts made with customers, vendors, partners, or employees. This involves negotiation, support and effectively managing agreements. The number of public procurement agreements as per the end user stakeholder group/unit are represented in the table below:

Unit

Number Skills Development and Research 4 Strategic Planning 3 Information Technology 15 Finance 1 Supply Chain Management 1 Monitoring and Evaluations 5 Corporate Services 4 Legal and Governance 7 Office Management 6 Customer Relations and Communication 2 Human Resources 8 MQA Board 2 TOTAL 58

The Legal unit drafts Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) on behalf of other units. These MoUs are generally agreements which do not contain any financial obligations from the MQA and the other party to the agreement, and it is sometimes used as the first step in signing an agreement. The use of MoUs is very useful to form and formalise relationships with stakeholders.

List of MQA MoUs

Unit

Stakeholder Relations Learning Programmes TOTAL

Total Number

2 1 3