Recently, the General Office of the State Council issued "Opinions on Innovating and Perfecting the System and Mechanism to Promote the Healthy Development of the Bidding Market" (hereinafter referred to as "Opinions"). Targeted measures should be taken to rectify the persistent problems such as the lag of system rules, the non-implementation of the main responsibility, the difficulty of breaking down trade barriers, and the irregular market order. The Opinion clearly States that the punishment for illegal and criminal acts such as excluding and restricting potential bidders, evading bidding, colluding in bidding, and winning the bid by bribery will be strengthened according to law, and the subcontracting and illegal subcontracting will be severely cracked down.
Bidding is an important way to allocate resources in the market. Business entities carry out supply-demand docking and competitive selection through tendering and bidding, which is conducive to the optimal allocation of various elements. The bidding field has a wide range of links and strong policy professionalism, and it is also an area where power rent-seeking and corruption are prone to occur. This year's government work report proposes to strengthen the regulation and management of the bidding market. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Discipline Commission called for deepening the rectification of corruption in the areas of centralized power, intensive capital and rich resources, such as finance, state-owned enterprises, energy, tobacco, medicine, infrastructure projects and bidding. What are the outstanding contradictions and deep-seated problems in the field of tendering and bidding
at present? How to crack it from the institutional level?
< IMG SRC = "https://img7.ccement.com/richtext/img/he3w3pxiu1717470450183. The picture shows that recently, the discipline inspection and supervision cadres of the city visited Shouchang Branch Center of the Municipal Public Resources Trading Center to learn about the relevant situation.". Bidding and tendering for
construction projects belong to the field of centralized power, intensive capital and rich resources, which is prone to illegal and corrupt problems
. Reporter: What are the main contradictions and deep-seated problems in the field of bidding and tendering at present? What are the reasons for these problems? In 2023, the Law Department of the National Development and Reform Commission and the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Group of the Commission jointly conducted a joint survey with the relevant departments and bureaus of the administrative supervision department of tendering and bidding under the State Council, and found that there are still many prominent contradictions in the current tendering and bidding market, and some unreasonable restrictions and hidden barriers have not been completely eliminated. Illegal acts such as evading bidding, false bidding, bid-rigging, intervention by relevant departments and leading cadres are still prone to occur frequently, the service level of bidding agents is uneven, and some experts are not specialized in bidding evaluation, which seriously disrupts the order of the bidding market and restricts the competitive role of the bidding system.
Analyzing the deep-seated reasons behind the problems: from the perspective of the market's own attributes, bidding for construction projects belongs to the field of centralized power, intensive capital and rich resources, which is easy to breed illegal and corrupt problems; From the perspective of market operation mechanism, the main responsibility of bidders is not implemented, the positioning of bid evaluation and bid selection is not clear, the methods and organizational mechanism of bid evaluation are not scientific enough, and the relationship between rights, responsibilities and interests of bidders, bidding agencies, bidders, bid evaluation experts and public resources trading centers needs to be straightened out, which to a certain extent causes differences and confusion in practice; From the perspective of external market supervision, there are still some problems in the field of tendering and bidding, such as inadequate implementation of administrative supervision responsibility, imperfect coordination and linkage mechanism, and backward means of supervision, which fail to effectively deter violations of law and discipline in the field of tendering and bidding.
The bid inviter should be responsible for the entire bidding activity, and should not act as a "hands-off shopkeeper."
[Reporter] In practice, some leading cadres of bidding units, out of selfishness, control bid evaluation and internally determine the winning bidder in advance, turning bidding into a mere formality. How to rectify this problem? From the international point of view, it is a general consensus that the tenderer bears the main responsibility for the bidding project. In accordance with the principle of equal rights and responsibilities, the Opinion emphasizes respecting and guaranteeing the legal rights of bidders and compacting the main responsibilities of bidders, so as to better standardize bidding activities, improve the quality of projects and give full play to the competitive role of bidding.
One is to consolidate the main responsibility of the tenderer. "Opinions" emphasizes: "implement the responsibilities of the tenderee in organizing bidding, handling objections and supervising the performance of the contract", "improve the mechanism for the tenderee to restrict the bidding agency activities according to the entrusted contract management", "establish and improve the procedures for the tenderee to review the bid evaluation report, and the tenderee has the right to request the bid evaluation committee to review and correct the errors in the bid evaluation report". These provisions are intended to make it clear that the tenderer should be responsible for the whole tendering and bidding activities, and should not act as a "hands-off shopkeeper" and shift the responsibility to the agency or bid evaluation experts.
The second is to standardize the exercise of the rights of bidders. In order to prevent the tenderee from "tailor-made" bidding qualifications and performance conditions for specific related parties, the Opinions require that the issuance of bidding plans should be standardized, the bidding documents should be encouraged to be publicized in advance, and the publicity of bidding announcements, bid-winning contracts and performance information should be strengthened, and the bidding announcements should specify the administrative supervision departments of bidding and tendering. In order to prevent the tenderee from abusing the right of calibration in the process of calibration, the Opinion requires that the whole process of calibration be recorded and traceable. In view of the problem of transaction barriers in some bidding documents, the Opinion calls for strengthening random spot checks of bidding documents, using digital means to strengthen the analysis and comparison of qualifications and business conditions of similar projects, and focusing on the verification of abnormal bidding documents.
Third, we should strengthen supervision over the leading cadres of bidding units. In view of the situation that some leading cadres of bidding units interfere in bidding activities out of selfishness, the Opinion proposes that the organization of bidding and participation in bidding by state-owned enterprises should be included in the strict management of the accountability system for operation and investment. It also requests that the clues of public officials of Party and government organs, state-owned enterprises and institutions, people's organizations and other units who use their powers to seek illegal interests and bribery be transferred to the disciplinary inspection and supervision organs.
Reporter: In order to improve the relationship with the bidding units, some bidding agencies are obedient to the bidding units, and even meet the requirements of designating bidding units in advance, which are obviously illegal, thus providing space for corruption to breed. How to rectify such problems? In order to regulate the behavior of bidding agencies and their employees, the Opinion focuses on two aspects. One is to strengthen positive guidance. In order to solve the problem of "no rules to follow" in bidding agency activities after the cancellation of qualification licensing items, the Opinions put forward that the service standards and codes of conduct for bidding agency should be formulated, the self-discipline of bidding agency industry should be strengthened, and the illegal requirements put forward by bidders should be resolutely resisted and promptly dissuaded; It also calls for speeding up the evaluation of the competence of bidding and procurement professionals, and studying and improving the training mechanism of personnel related to bidding and procurement. These measures focus on guiding bidding agencies to standardize their activities and improve their professional service level. The second is to strengthen external constraints. The Opinions put forward that the tenderee should improve the mechanism of restricting the bidding agency activities according to the entrusted contract management. We should deal with arbitrary charges in the field of bidding agency and crack down on price violations such as price increases. The bid invitation agencies that seriously violate the law and the persons directly responsible for them shall be dealt with according to law and shall be prohibited from entering the industry.
Strictly control the "entrance" of bid evaluation experts and strengthen daily dynamic management
Reporter: The "Opinions" put forward some measures to improve bid evaluation methods and mechanisms, such as reasonably determining the time for bid evaluation and the number of members of the bid evaluation committee; comprehensively promoting remote bid evaluation on the Internet; and promoting secret bid evaluation that hides the information of bidders. What are its advantages and what role can it play? In view of the outstanding problems reflected in various aspects, the Opinion absorbs and draws lessons from the exploration and practice of various places, and improves the evaluation methods and mechanisms.
The first is to standardize the scope of application of the evaluated lowest bidding price method, which is generally applicable to bidding projects with general technical and performance standards or with no special requirements for technology and performance. In the bid evaluation of survey and design projects, technical factors should be highlighted and weights should be increased accordingly. We will improve the bid evaluation committee's procedures for screening and handling abnormal low prices, and reject low-price bids that seriously affect the performance of the contract in accordance with the law. These measures are conducive to solving the problem of winning the bid with low price and low quality. The second is to reasonably determine the time of bid evaluation and the number of members of the bid evaluation committee. This is a key step to ensure the fairness, professionalism and efficiency of the bid evaluation process, and helps to avoid the impact of "improper time setting for bid evaluation and unreasonable number of members of the bid evaluation committee" on the quality and efficiency of bid evaluation. Thirdly, we should comprehensively promote network remote bid evaluation and implement secret bid evaluation with hidden bidder information, so as to break the interest relationship between experts and bidders, solve the problem of "human relations" and curb rent-seeking corruption among experts.
Reporter: Bid evaluation experts are the main participants and decision makers in bid evaluation activities. In practice, some bid evaluation experts seriously violate professional ethics and accept the benefits of bidders to help them win the bid, which seriously damages the fairness and impartiality of bidding. How to rectify such problems? In view of the problems existing in the current bid evaluation experts, such as uneven quality, unprofessional and unfair bid evaluation, the Opinions put forward targeted measures. One is to improve the quality of bid evaluation experts. The Opinion solves the problem of "experts are not specialized" by optimizing the professional classification of bid evaluation experts and improving the matching degree between experts and projects. Through strengthening the examination, professional training and honesty education of bid evaluation experts, the "entrance pass" of experts is strictly controlled. The second is to strengthen daily dynamic management. The Opinion requires the organizing units of the bid evaluation expert database to establish and improve the whole process and chain management system, improve the system norms of fair performance commitment and confidentiality management of bid evaluation experts, establish the mechanism of daily assessment and evaluation, dynamic adjustment and rotation of bid evaluation experts, and emphasize that bid evaluation experts are responsible for the results of bid evaluation for life. Third, improve the efficiency of expert bid evaluation. The Opinions put forward that the objective quantitative evaluation of bidders'qualifications, performance and credit should be actively tried out. This measure not only helps to reduce the interference of human factors, but also helps experts to better play their professional and technical advantages, focusing on technical evaluation, and improving the quality and efficiency of bid evaluation. Since March
2024, the Department of Laws and Regulations of the National Development and Reform Commission and the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Group of the Commission have carried out a special investigation focusing on cracking the chaos of bid evaluation experts, and put forward a series of work to be carried out in the next step in combination with the implementation of the Opinions: First, organize and carry out a nationwide clean-up of bid evaluation experts. In conjunction with relevant departments, we will guide all localities to verify the relevant information of experts in the database, discover and crack down on the illegal acts of bid evaluation experts by conducting spot checks on projects and collecting clues to problems, remove a number of experts who are unable to perform their duties or perform their duties improperly, and purify the team of bid evaluation experts. The second is to improve the management system of bid evaluation experts. Revise the current Interim Measures for the Management of Bid Evaluation Experts and Bid Evaluation Expert Pool, improve the daily dynamic management mechanism of experts, further clarify the boundaries of expert behavior, and refine the implementation of the requirements of the Opinions. Third, improve the way of bid evaluation organization. To organize and compile unified technical standards for interconnection and sharing of expert databases and remote bid evaluation, break the barriers between transaction processes, electronic systems and information data, and promote the comprehensive popularization and application of remote bid evaluation by standardization.At the same time, we will sort out and summarize a number of typical practices of objective quantitative intelligent evaluation and secret bid evaluation, and promote them nationwide.
Consolidate the responsibility of supervision, strengthen the coordination of supervision, improve the way of supervision, and strive to improve the effect
of supervision of bidding and tendering. Reporter: Bidding for construction projects involves many departments, such as development and reform, housing construction, administrative examination and approval, and public resources trading center. The overlapping responsibilities and unclear responsibilities among departments restrict the effect of supervision. How to solve this problem? In view of the weak links in the supervision of tendering and bidding, the Department of Laws and Regulations of the National Development and Reform Commission and the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Group of the Commission, together with the relevant departments, have conducted a study, and on the basis of summing up the typical experiences and practices of various departments in various regions, put forward reform measures from the aspects of supervision responsibility, supervision coordination and supervision mode.
One is to consolidate the responsibility of supervision. In view of the problems of mutual prevarication and regulatory gaps that may arise from the supervision of tendering and bidding sub-industries in some fields and localities, the Opinion proposes to compile a list of administrative supervision responsibilities in different fields, clarify the competent departments and the scope, procedures and methods of supervision, and eliminate the blind areas of supervision. For matters with vague regulatory boundaries and controversial responsibilities, the local people's governments shall clarify the competent departments and regulatory responsibilities in accordance with the principles of field centralization, simplification and efficiency.
The second is to strengthen regulatory coordination. We will further straighten out the administrative supervision system for tendering and bidding, and explore the establishment of a coordinated mechanism combining comprehensive supervision with industry supervision. Strengthen the organic connection between bidding and investment decision-making, quality and safety, completion and acceptance, open up the business information system of examination and approval and supervision, enhance the integrated supervision ability of engineering construction, strengthen the linkage between the bidding market and the performance site, and improve the supervision of the whole chain and the whole field before, during and after the event. Strengthen cooperation with discipline inspection and supervision organs and auditing organs, transfer the clues of violations of rules and regulations in the field of tendering and bidding in accordance with regulations, and carefully check and deal with the clues received. We will improve the mechanism of coordinated supervision and information sharing among administrative supervision departments, transfer the responsibilities of other departments involved in the process of supervision and law enforcement to relevant departments in a timely manner or jointly handle them, and focus on solving such problems as multiple handling, overlapping responsibilities and inconsistent standards of administrative penalty discretion among different industries.
Third, improve the way of supervision. In view of the strong concealment of illegal and criminal activities in tendering and bidding and the difficulty of investigating and collecting evidence, the Opinion calls for innovating the way of digital supervision, promoting the transformation from on-site supervision to full-process digital supervision, improving the function of electronic supervision platform for tendering and bidding, and smoothing the administrative supervision departments, discipline inspection and supervision organs, judicial organs and auditing organs for tendering and bidding. Establish an open and collaborative regulatory network. In order to better improve the efficiency of supervision, the Opinion proposes to strengthen supervision by means of off-site, IOT perception, palm mobile, penetrating and other new regulatory means.
