Publicity, transparency, competitiveness and economic viability are key strengths of online bidding. However, only 18 per cent of 30,000 packages deployed today are put up for online tenders to date.
According to the Vietnam Online Bidding Centre, about 9,000 packages have been launched online as of 2018, doubling the figure in the same time in 2017. By the end of 2018, about 15,000 bid packages will be conducted electronically.
Technical and awareness barriers
According to the Prime Minister’s Decision 1402/QD-TTg dated July 13, all bidding information must be posted publicly on the online bidding system by 2025. In addition, 100 per cent of regular procurements must be conducted via the network and at least 70 per cent of tender packages subject to the scope of administration of the Procurement Law must be made on the national tender network.
Mr Vu Dai Thang, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, said, “The Ministry of Planning and Investment will continue to improve the legal basis, raise capacity building through training, disseminate information to stakeholders to increase investment for complete technical infrastructure of the online tender network. Although initial results are satisfactory; however, in order to realise the above objectives, the task of online bidding development remains very difficult and challenging.”
Pointing out specific reasons, Mr Nguyen Anh Tuan, Deputy Director of Investment Management Bureau under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, said that if there were only three units to pilot online bidding in the first phase, the online bidding was launched nationwide in 2016. Savings earned from online bidding are over 9 per cent, higher than the overall savings of traditional bidding of about 6.98 per cent.
“However, online bidding still encounters two major hardships: Technical infrastructure and perception of contractors and tenderers involved in this activity,” he said.
After three years of deployment, 41 out of 119 agencies and units have not yet started to adopt online bidding. They usually pleaded existing hardships to excuse the deployment. However, when they started, they did very well. Therefore, the matter lies in perception.
Remarking on existing online bidding hardships in Vietnam, Mr Adu-Gyamfi Abunyewa, Senior Procurement Specialist of the World Bank (WB), said, “The online tender network still lacks capacity and features. But, all countries must start with their very hard steps. Mongolia and Malaysia built their systems from scratch at first and they then adapt to actual contexts and had eventual success. At present, Vietnam is going on the same way.”
In addition, speaking of the practicality of the system, he analysed that hardly any country has a perfect online bidding system from the very start. Each country has specific conditions and procurement policies and it is impossible to make a perfect online bidding system of a country perfect in another one. The matter is how to operate it effectively and appropriately.”
Reduced costs for businesses
According to experts, online bidding achieves four important objectives: Publicity, transparency, competitiveness and efficiency. However, it is particularly noteworthy that online bidding can eliminate negative factors in the bidding process as commented by Mr Ha Tien Luc, Deputy General Director of Hanoi Electromechanical Manufacturing Joint Stock Company (HEM).
“The company joined only one or two bidding packages each year in the past but we now take part in nearly all packages,” he said.
“Online bidding helps companies reduce many types of costs. Online bidding is a fair platform for all bidders to compete equally. Companies may feel somewhat shy at first but they will soon find a lot of benefits after joining,” he explained.
“HEM has reduced at least 3-5 per cent of costs, depending on package size, when it joins online bidding,” he added.
Sharing experience in opening bids at EVN member units, Ms Pham Thuy Ha, Director of the Tender Management Department of Electricity Group of Vietnam (EVN), said, “In the last three years, EVN has assigned a scorecard benchmark for the head of the unit subject to online bidding deployment. It was an encouraging indicator at first but compulsory from 2017. When they adopted online bidding, they began to see an incremental reduction of expenses, with the very first being printing costs and then administrative procedures and documents. We hope to see higher efficiency in the coming time.”
For that reason, to deal with two constraints that are being considered barriers to online bidding, in addition to communications aimed to change awareness of enterprises and investors by letting them see financial benefits, upgrading the infrastructure system for online bidding is also important. In the coming time, the Procurement Management Department, Ministry of Planning and Investment, will coordinate with development partners such as the WB and the ABD to complete this system.
N.H
Vietnamese
