Information transparency and service time shortening were major topics of discussion at the Conference on Effective Tender Procedures for FDI Enterprises” in a move to collect opinions for improvements in the draft of amended Tender Law. The event was organised in Hanoi by the Procurement Administration Agency.
According to experts, in Vietnam, the total value of procurement packages applied in accordance with the Law on Tender accounts for some 20 percent of GDP, estimated at more than US$20 billion a year. Therefore, if all procurement packages are applied via internet, the value of savings may amount to billions of US dollars. This, if comes true, will be a practical contribution to the successful implementation of the Government’s Resolution 11/NQ-CP.
Mr Nguyen Xuan Dao, Deputy Director of the Procurement Administration Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, said: To date, the tender law system has been basically completed to meet practical demand and save a big sum of money for the State Budget. However, information transparency and service time shortening are major obstacles to bring the Law on Tender into life. These problems need to be resolved with joint efforts of both authorities and businesses. That was one of the important contents specified in Article 5 of the Tender Law. These were detailed in four objectives of the tender sector, namely publicity, transparency, fairness and efficiency. Improvements are also aimed at increasing implementation responsibility and accountability of auctioneering agencies (investors, tenderers) and restricting collusion, connivance and corruption in procurement procedures, etc.
Ms Nguyen Thi Dieu Phuong, Head of Procurement Policy Department under the Procurement Administration Agency, said: The current Law on Tender does not provide that tender organisers shall announce reasons for unsuccessful bids except for requests from bidders and related parties. Therefore, one of intention-catching contents is to add the publicity of reasons for unsuccessful bids. Even, this content is an obligatory requirement, aiming to ensure accountability of tender organisers and tenderers in the process of appraising bidding documents.
She analysed that, according to the Joint Circular No. 20/2010/TTLT-BKH-BTC dated September 21, 2010 of the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Finance, the time from receiving tender information of investors and tenderer to publishing it is at most three working days prior to the expected date of publication. However, if the new form of online tendering is in practice, the time will be reduced to one day instead of three. This is considered a convincing content for the amendment to the Law on Tender. In addition, the pilot deployment of online bidding was applied in large State-run corporations like the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) and the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT). Notably, the Vietnamese e- tendering system now has 652 tenderers which are approved domestic and foreign-invested enterprises. And, according to statistics, since the pilot was launched, about 200 deals have been reached.
Remarking on the shortened time for online bidding, Mr Dao said that current legal system of Vietnam is now compatible with international practices. However, representatives of many State-owned corporations said the time for bidding remained too long. In addition, the same time applied to all bids in spite of their different characteristics is also irrational.
Even, according to many delegates, the legal provisions on time and procedure remain quite rigid in bidding process. To create a ripple effect, State responsible authorities must inform primacies and advantages of the new tender form. Besides, infrastructure must be also modernised to support the new form to gain success in the second phase towards 2015.
Anh Phuong
Vietnamese
