Ministry of Planning and Investment reports to the Prime Minister about "blue army, red army, and mafia bidding"

The 34,000 billion VND Da Nang - Quang Ngai Expressway, which was just put into use, is already damaged. Illustrative photo Zing.vn

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, through the inspection process and actual handling of petitions, it shows that negative behaviors and violations have not been thoroughly resolved, and still exist in many places and are complicated.

The acts identified by the Ministry of Planning and Investment are intentionally dividing bidding packages to apply designated bidding or less competitive forms than open bidding...

In addition, there are also "gangster" behaviors such as hindering the purchase and submission of bidding documents by contractors, using many reasons to limit the sale of bidding documents; robbing and destroying bidding documents. The location of the document issuance is unclear, not according to the bidding notice or invitation to offer.

Behaviors that obstruct bidding such as deliberately offering low prices, continuously making unreasonable recommendations to all levels to put pressure on investors/inviting parties, causing obstacles and prolonging bidding time.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment said: The process of evaluating bidding documents and proposal documents is still subjective and not transparent, with the aim of deliberately eliminating contractors due to non-serious errors; not allowing clarification, ignoring serious errors of "favored" contractors.

Acts of "collusion", "blue team", "red team", arrangement between contractors and between contractors and the inviting party...

Pothole on the 34,000 billion VND Da Nang - Quang Ngai highway.

Meanwhile, the inspection and examination of bidding has not yet met the requirements. Through review, some localities only conduct very few inspections throughout the year (1-3 inspections) or only conduct inspection of bidding when there are recommendations and complaints about violations...

Even some agencies listed by the Ministry of Planning and Investment did not conduct any inspections such as Hai Phong, Thanh Hoa, Ha Giang, Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, Railway Corporation...

In some localities, no violations were detected during inspections; however, when the inspection team of the Ministry of Planning and Investment directly inspected a number of bidding packages, many shortcomings and violations were discovered.

According to reports from local ministries and agencies, in 2017, 102 individuals and organizations were disciplined for violations in the bidding field. However, the Ministry of Planning and Investment only received 18 decisions on handling violations sent by local ministries and agencies.

"Lax management, lack of determination in inspection, supervision and handling of violations are some of the main reasons leading to the existence of negativity and violations in bidding work," commented the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Reality shows that the extent of negative behaviors in bidding, especially collusion, in ministries and localities depends on the seriousness and responsibility in law enforcement of the head. For agencies and units with serious direction and leadership, most negative behaviors are prevented and limited, and the savings rate in bidding is high. On the contrary, the effectiveness of bidding is very limited, with many shortcomings, negativity, and violations.

According to the report of the Ministry of Planning and Investment, in 2017, the form of designated bidding had the largest number of bidding packages with more than 153 thousand bidding packages, ranking second in total bidding package value with more than 74 thousand billion. However, the savings value of bidding packages in this form was the lowest.

Open bidding is a form of selecting the contractor with the highest total package price and total winning bid price, and at the same time the savings rate through bidding is quite high.

Competitive bidding ranked third in terms of total number of packages, total package price and total winning price. Restricted bidding had the fewest number of packages but the highest savings rate.