A few days ago, the website of the Ministry of Finance published a number of government procurement-related issues that netizens were concerned about. The following is 12 about the procurement mode of competitive negotiation. Is there anything you care about?
Q: For renovation projects unrelated to new construction, renovation and expansion, if competitive negotiation is adopted for procurement, can you set a specific amount (600,000 yuan) in the qualification conditions and specify the performance of the "geochemical laboratory renovation" project? At the same time, performance is regarded as a scoring item in the scoring standard.
Reply from the Ministry of Finance: Government procurement projects shall not take specific amount or specific industry performance as qualification conditions or evaluation factors.
Q: After the bidding results of competitive negotiation projects were publicized, they were questioned by other suppliers on the grounds that the negotiating team had made an error in scoring a certain item. If the query is established, the supplier's score will change, but it will not affect the ranking result and the winning bid result. In this case, can the procurement activities continue? Or do you need to cancel the bid and re-open the bid?
Reply from the Ministry of Finance: According to Article 16 of the Measures for Questioning and Complaining in Government Procurement (Order No.94 of the Ministry of Finance), if the purchaser and agency think that the supplier's query is established, but it has not affected the winning bid and the transaction result, they will continue their procurement activities.
Q: The competitive negotiation document announced by the Public Resource Trading Center stipulates that "if there is any doubt about the procurement document, it shall be counted from the date when the announcement of the procurement document expires, and it shall be put forward before the bidding deadline". However, according to Article 11 of Decree No.94 of the Ministry of Finance of People's Republic of China (PRC)-Measures for Questioning and Complaining about Government Procurement, the supplier who questions the procurement documents should question them within 7 working days after the expiration of the time limit for obtaining the procurement documents or after the bid evaluation, so he questions the procurement documents. What kind of effect should it show at this time?
The Ministry of Finance replied: Suppliers should raise questions according to law within the statutory time limit stipulated in Article 11 of the Measures for Questioning and Complaining about Government Procurement (Order No.94 of the Ministry of Finance), and purchasers and agencies shall not derogate from the statutory rights of suppliers in an agreed way.
Q: The government purchases services through competitive negotiation, and the information about purchasing services is published through the website. Only two suppliers bid (both meet the requirements). Can the purchase be carried out normally?
The Ministry of Finance replied that competitive negotiation procurement activities should be terminated under the circumstances described in the message.
Q: The Ministry of Finance's Memorandum No.385 of 2020 stipulates that independent decoration, demolition and repair projects that are not related to new construction, reconstruction and expansion of buildings and structures above the bidding limit belong to the centralized government procurement catalogue, while government procurement projects above the bidding limit but below the bidding limit are not projects that must be subject to bidding according to law. When the government purchases such projects, it should adopt competitive negotiation and bid negotiation. Excuse me, do you still need to go through the formalities of changing the procurement method for the engineering projects that belong to the above situation before the procurement activities begin?
The Ministry of Finance replied: For government procurement projects that are not subject to tender according to law, competitive negotiation, competitive negotiation or single-source procurement should be adopted, and there is no need to go through the formalities for changing the procurement method.
Q: How do you understand Article 14 of the Interim Measures for the Administration of Competitive Consultation on Government Procurement, which stipulates that "representatives of purchasers shall not participate in the evaluation of procurement projects of their own departments or units as evaluation experts"? In the process of bid evaluation, the purchaser's representative (not a provincial expert database expert) signed the Statement of Bid Evaluation Experts and the Registration Form of Bid Evaluation Experts (the consulting group * * *, and two other mechanical pumping experts also signed the above two forms). Based on this behavior alone, can it be determined that the purchaser participated in the evaluation of the procurement projects of the department or the unit as an evaluation expert?
Reply from the Ministry of Finance: According to the relevant provisions of the Interim Measures for the Administration of Competitive Consultation on Government Procurement, the consultation group consists of an odd number of three or more representatives of the purchaser and evaluation experts, of which the number of evaluation experts shall not be less than 2/3 of the total members of the consultation group. Under the circumstances described in the news, it is impossible to judge whether the purchaser's representative participates in the evaluation of the procurement project of the unit as an evaluation expert, and the purchaser's representative participates in the evaluation of the procurement project of the unit as a member of the consulting group, which does not violate the relevant provisions of government procurement.
Q: Recently, when I participated in competitive negotiation procurement in a county-level procurement center, I encountered a very different problem. Elsewhere, the second round price is quoted, which is clearly written in the procurement documents. The first round price shall be placed in the response document and submitted in a sealed manner before the deadline for bidding, which shall be counted as one round. The second round will be submitted on the spot after the on-site consultation. However, the writing of the final quotation after negotiation in this public resource trading center is as follows: "In the process of negotiation, if the technology, service and core contents of the draft contract terms in the procurement demand have not changed substantially, or the substantial changes are not enough to affect the quotation, the quotation sealed before the bidding deadline shall be the final quotation." So my supplier didn't know exactly how many rounds to apply for during the negotiation, and whether he would change the purchasing demand. As a result, we quoted a higher price in the sealed quotation, but in the final quotation, the talents in the trading center said that only one round was quoted, which was subject to the sealed quotation sheet submitted before the bidding deadline, and the second round of price was not allowed on site. We think there is obviously some possibility of manipulation in this way. We feel that this regulation is somewhat illegal. Excuse me, can I have a round of bidding for the negotiation procurement method? If it is a round of bidding, should the bidder be required to submit the quotation letter on the spot after the negotiation, instead of taking the sealed quotation submitted before the bidding deadline as the final quotation? I would like to ask if we should quote at least two rounds of price for negotiation (one round is submitted before the deadline for bidding, and the other round is submitted after the negotiation, and the last round is filed and sealed on site), so is this quotation legal, compliant and effective?
Reply from the Ministry of Finance: According to the relevant provisions of Article 21 of the Interim Measures for the Administration of Competitive Consultation on Government Procurement, if the consultation document can specify the technical and service requirements of the procurement target in detail, after the negotiation, the consultation team shall require all suppliers who respond substantively to submit the final quotation within the specified time, and make a review according to the final quotation.
Q: I am an organization. Our company encountered a situation when organizing competitive negotiation projects. There are five suppliers who submit reply documents. According to Decree No.87, when suppliers submit response documents, they shall sign for the qualified response documents. During the supplier's inspection of the sealed packaging of documents, supplier A proposed that the document packaging of supplier B did not meet the requirements of procurement documents, and applied to cancel its bidding qualification. The reason is that there are several items on the sealing sleeve of supplier B, including the seal of the legal representative of supplier B, the LOGO of supplier B and the negotiation date. The procurement document stipulates that "the supplier shall seal the original and copy of the response document in a sealed envelope, the electronic version of the response document in a sealed envelope, the original required in the scoring item in a sealed envelope, and the seal of each sealed envelope shall be stamped with the official seal of the supplier. * * * 3 envelopes. (1) The following contents shall be marked on the outer sealing sleeve of the Three Guarantees: ① Project name; ② Full name of the purchaser; ③ Name and address of the supplier; (4) Date, year, month, and date of bid opening, before which bid opening is not allowed. (2) If the relevant contents are not sealed and marked as required, the response document will be rejected and returned to the supplier. " Consultation question (1) Can the suppliers participating in the bidding check the document sealing of other bidders? (2) The procurement document does not specify whether to add the envelope contents to the sealed packaging requirements. Supplier B has packaged the contents according to the requirements of the procurement document, and the organization has signed for it. Is it correct to continue the procurement activities?
Ministry of Finance replied: 1. The supplier is required to submit the response file in a sealed manner to protect the information of the supplier's response file. The purchaser and the procurement agency should check the sealing of the response documents according to the requirements of the procurement documents, and generally do not check by other suppliers.
2. The sealing defect of the response file mentioned in the message does not affect the validity of the response file.
Q: At present, there are three questions about non-tendering projects: First, whether it is necessary to determine the core brand or the relevant provisions for determining the participation of goods with at least three brands in the procurement of goods consulting projects. 2. If there are no more than three brands, is there any violation of the provisions in the Reply on How to Calculate the Number of Suppliers when Multiple Agents Participate in the Bidding of a Manufacturer's Products (Caibanku [2003] No.38) that "the products of the same brand and model can only be participated by one supplier, and if multiple agents participate in the bidding of the products of the same brand and model, it shall be counted as one supplier"? Third, if the regulatory authorities identify violations on this ground, whether it is established. In addition, if the three brands do meet the relevant regulations and can be negotiated between two companies or between two companies, how to deal with them.
Reply from Finance Department: 1. In the procurement project of goods competitive negotiation, the purchaser can determine the core products according to the needs of the project, but it is not mandatory.
2. According to the relevant provisions of the Reply on How to Calculate the Number of Suppliers when Several Agents Participate in Bidding on behalf of a Manufacturer's Products (No.38 [2003] of Finance Office), if several agents provide the same brand products when participating in government procurement activities, it shall be counted as one supplier.
3. In competitive negotiation procurement projects, there shall be no less than three suppliers who submit final quotations. For scientific research projects with insufficient market competition and scientific and technological achievements transformation projects that need support, two suppliers can submit final quotations. In the procurement process of government-purchased services (including government and social capital cooperation projects) for competitive negotiation procurement, if there are only two suppliers (social capital) that meet the requirements, competitive negotiation procurement activities can continue.
Q: Generally, competitive negotiation is adopted in procurement, and the qualification of suppliers is examined. Can you entrust an evaluation expert to carry out the inspection?
The Ministry of Finance replied that competitive consulting projects can be qualified by the purchaser and its procurement agency according to law, or by the consulting group, but it should be clearly stated in the consulting documents.
Q: A negotiation project, three companies, A, B and C, all passed the qualification and compliance examination. After the final offer, the jury rated A as the highest score, B as the second score and C as the third score. After that, the agency announced that A won the bid, and B submitted the inquiry after the announcement. The organization organized the original judges to answer questions, and the judges found that the score was wrong. However, it does not belong to one of the situations of "incorrect qualification examination, incorrect score calculation, sub-items beyond the scope of scoring standards, inconsistent objective scores, and abnormally high and low scores unanimously determined by the consulting group". In fact, the judges missed the bidding documents of B, which led to an objective score of B. The accurate ranking should be B first, A second and C third. Q: According to the second paragraph of Article 16 of the Measures for Inquiries and Complaints, if a qualified supplier meets the statutory requirements, it can determine the successful bidder and the successful bidder respectively with the qualified successful bidder or the successful bidder, and determine the successful bidder and the successful bidder respectively according to law; Otherwise, procurement activities should be resumed. "According to the provisions of Article 32 of the Interim Measures for the Administration of Competitive Consultation, if the purchaser or procurement agency finds that the consultative group has not conducted evaluation according to the evaluation criteria stipulated in the consultation documents, it shall conduct procurement activities again. Then, under the above circumstances, shall Party B be determined as the winning bidder according to the provisions of the second paragraph of Article 16 of the Measures for Queries and Complaints, or shall the procurement activities be resumed according to the provisions of Article 32 of the Interim Measures for the Administration of Competitive Consultation? Some people think that when the challenge is established, the case belongs to the situation that the relevant laws and regulations have explicitly required the purchaser to restart the procurement activities, and it does not belong to the situation that "the supplier who won the bid or clinched the deal can be determined from the qualified candidates", and the procurement activities should be resumed.
Reply from the Ministry of Finance: According to Article 16 of the Measures for Questioning and Complaining about Government Procurement (Order No.94 of the Ministry of Finance), if a qualified supplier meets the statutory requirements and can choose a deal from qualified candidates, it should choose according to law, otherwise it should resume procurement activities. If answering questions leads to changes in the transaction results, the purchaser or agency shall report to the financial department in writing.
Q: We are an agency, and the budget of the entrusted exhibition projects exceeds10 million yuan. Question 1: The purchaser intends to adopt the integrated design and construction bidding method, that is, there is no design scheme before bidding, and the bidder is required to provide the design scheme and construction scheme for bidding. In this case, because there is no design scheme, all bidders bring their own schemes, and all construction materials and equipment are inconsistent, which means that there is no unified quotation basis for all parties. Can this comprehensive bidding method be adopted in this case? Question 2: If the financial department approves that the procurement can be conducted by competitive negotiation, then the supplier is required to make a second quotation according to the unified design scheme after the preliminary evaluation. How to leave enough time for the supplier to make a second quotation, because the second quotation in this case is obviously not made by the supplier on the same day and may take several days. How to deal with the review site? . Thank you for explaining these two issues and listing the policy basis. Thank you.
Reply from the Finance Department: In principle, competitive negotiation or competitive negotiation is adopted for procurement projects with unclear requirements and requiring suppliers to provide design scheme and construction scheme. The procurement requirements are clarified first, and then the quotation is provided. The Interim Measures for the Administration of Competitive Consultation on Government Procurement does not stipulate that the final quotation must be submitted on the same day. The purchaser and the procurement agency can reasonably determine the project progress arrangement according to the actual situation of the project.