Online purchase system boosts transparency
Updated: 2011-12-19 09:42
By Huang Yuli (China Daily)
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"An evaluation normally includes four experts randomly generated from our expert database and the project leader; they carry it out inside one of our evaluation rooms, all monitored," he said. "Smaller evaluations take half a day, bigger ones several days."
Zhang Wentao, a hospital doctor in the city's Longgang district who was one of four experts judging the bidding process, said he marked the five bidders according to standards set in the system and his own clinical experience.
"To make the evaluation fairer, experts don't have the final say on who wins," said Ye Jianming. "They each choose three bidders as candidates, and the final say is given to project leaders. Otherwise it goes to a draw or another round of competitive bidding."
In 2009, the city's procurement center piloted a new way to purchase electrical and digital products in Bao'an district. The center opened bidding to chain stores and set a discount rate with the winner, so that project leaders can simply choose products directly from the winners' online stores. The chains chosen were Suning, Gome, Sundan and Rainbow.
"One advantage of chain store supply is it stops manufacturers from providing special models for the government to push up the price," Ye said. He added the center is rolling out the method to all districts.
As of July this year, the system had 2,122 registered project leaders, more than 19,000 suppliers and 5,500 evaluation experts. It has completed more than 3,000 procurements a year and has been visited 22.6 million times.
The total cost of procurements from 2003 to the end of last year was 38.77 billion yuan, according to figures provided by the center.
Shenzhen was the first to implement local legislation on government procurement in 1999. Ye said a revision of the existing rules by the city's finance committee and legislative affairs office went through a second review in October, and the new regulations are expected to take effect next year.