建設(shè)工程招投標資格預(yù)審制度的分析.doc

Analysis on the Pre-qualification System of Construction Project Bidding XU BingAbstract: The pre-qualification is an important work in the process of bidding projects.Its aims are to choose a qualified bidder who has experience, competence, reputation to undertake the project. However, there are a lot of problems in Chinas current tender work.Based on related laws and engineering practice activities in the area of project bidding, this paper analyses the status, problems and their causes of pre-qualification in the process of project bidding. On the basis of comparing with some mature foreign practices,this paper put forward corresponding recommendations about improving Chinas pre-qualification system.Keywords: bidding; pre-qualification; Construction ProjectI. INTRODUCTION The pre-qualification in the process of bidding projects is a activity that before sending invitation for bids or selling bidding documents,tenders inspect bidder Candidates qualifications,performance,skill level, financial status and so on,according with predetermined criteria of qualifications and select the qualified bidders. One of its fundamental aims is to review whether the potential bidders have experience, competence, reputation to undertake the project. On the other hand, controlling the number of bidders in a certain range ensures that the competitive efficiency of bidding activities, and reduces the workload of the tenders evaluation. In Chinas current tender work, on the one hand confusing the role of pre-qualification, and weakening the functions of bidding evaluation and calibration; on the other hand, there are also some defects in pre-qualification, such as non-specific applicable conditions, unclear review content, more subjective assessment method the lack of corresponding system protection and so on, which make the normative work to the pre-qualification system is very important.II.THE EVOLUTION OF PRE-QUALIFICATION SYSTEM OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECT BIDDINGIN IN CHINAPre-qualification system is built up with a bidding systems establishment in China.The “PRC Tendering and Bidding Law”issued in 1999 provides that: Tender could demand potential bidders to provide the proof of their qualification and performance,and inspects qualification of potential bidders according to the requirements of the project itself.The provisions of prequalification in“ The Tendering and Bidding Law” are too brief. There is no independent requirement to regulate the procedure of prequalification and it doesnt make provisions for the basic content of prequalification documents. Ministry of Construction promulgated 89 Decree in 2001“Management Regulation on housing construction and municipal infrastructure projects construction bidding”affirmed the role of prequalification in project tender. According to tender projects needs, tenderee can make prequalification by itself,and also entrusts the project bidding agencies to do this.Ministry of Construction2005No.208 document “Some Opinions on Strengthening Administrative Supervision of housing construction and municipal infrastructure projects construction bidding” further provides for prequalifications applicable conditions in the construction of bidding project.In the construction project bidding,in addition to technology especially complex or special technical requirements,it promotes post-qualification. In the specific assessment methods, there are relevant regulations throughout different cities. Such as “Beijing pre-qualification methods of construction Project bidding(2006)” provides that: Pre-qualification evaluation can be used quantitative and qualitative assessment or other assessment is permitted in laws. “The standard document of construction pre-qualification tender”which is carried out since May 1,2008, provides a model for pre-qualification. Tendering can develop specific requirements according to the specific characteristics of the project and actual needs.The third chapter“pre-qualification approach”provides two kinds of methods,qualified system and the limited number system,tender can choose one according to the specific characteristics and actual needs.III. THE PROBLEM IN PREQUALIFICATION OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECT BIDDING Despite the introduction of pre-qualification is in line with relevant laws and regulations, in our bidding practice, pre-qualification activities still have some problems to be solved, which can be summarized into the following main aspects. A. The application of Pre-qualification lacks of clear provisions Chinas laws on the applicability of pre-qualification provide that tenderee can make prequalification according to tender projects needs.In the construction project bidding,in addition to technology especially complex or special technical requirements, it promotes post-qualification.In the actual operation this makes it difficult for tenderee to grasp what kind of project will need pre-qualification.If the tender cost and value of project do not match,the tenderee makes the pre-qualification complicated invariably,without regard to the size and technical difficulty.It will surely make the pre-qualification a mere formality.B. Difficult to examine the comprehensive ability of enterprises by the imperfect indicators of pre-qualification The purpose of pre-qualification is to review whether the tender companys overall ability can meet the requirements of tender project,and the emphasis should focus on the ability of controlling risk and performance capabilities. However, pre-qualification indicator system is not perfect at present in China,mainly concentrated in the review of business qualifications, technical competence,financial capacity,experience,and so on. These conditions are consistent with the construction enterprise qualification level standards. The qualification level primarily reflects the scale of construction enterprises and technological capacity,indicating enterprises have the ability to undertake projects in a particular profession and a certain size,but it does not reflect the comprehensive capabilities of enterprises, in particularly,the ability of performance and control and taking risks. C. Assessment method lacks of objectivity China use two kinds of screening methods, qualitative and quantitative, in prequalification: Qualitative screening methods is used for no limit on the number of applicants, but this method has a lot of human factors which make a number of pre-qualification criteria and methods easily have tendentious, and are not based on the characteristics of the project itself to select qualified contractor; quantitative method is used for limit on the number of applicants , the more common method is the“percentage scoring system”, but this method have some unreasonable factors in the choice of indicators and their weights, which often were impacted by experts personal inclination and experience.D. The approach of assessment results lack of rationalityConsidering the social cost of entire bidding activities and bid evaluation workload,in the case of using pre-qualification and excessive successful applicants,the number of qualified bidders is generally restricted.When the number of qualified bidding applicants is more than seven,the tender can choose one of the following ways to determine who the biding applicants are:1)In accordance with the review approach agreed by prequalification documents,the tender determines pre-qualified qualified applicants by scoring and sequencing,from high to low to determine 7 or more qualified bidders;2)Random lottery to identify pre-qualified bidders list,usually not less than 7; Random lottery approach is public but not scientific.In fact,it is discrimination to bidders;scoring and sequencing avoid the sort randomness.But there are the problems of incomplete index and assessment method lacking of objectivity. E. The qualification assessment materials lacks of authenticity Prequalification is the first step to win the bid.Some bidders using a false qualification or others name to participate in the competition in order to pass the prequalification and winning the bid are common occurrences.In the case of public bidding widely used for most projects,the number of tender applicants is large.It is difficult for the tender to examine the bidders.Prequalification only stops at the written examination,but rarely to screen the authenticity of the application materials.It contributes to the biddersfalsifications. F. Assessment procedure lacks of impartiality Although the existing laws and regulations give the construction administrative department the authority to supervise the whole process,but only the written report on tender situation is supervised after the successful bidder is determined,and how to ensure an open and fair manner for pre-qualification there is no clear defined,it makes pre-qualification assessment procedures have many irregularities. For example, the tenderer plays tricks on the selection of experts, especially choosing “relative expert”. The tenderer deliberately manipulates the assessment results.The tenderer deliberately set particular evaluation criteria for a particular bidder. This excludes some potential bidders for some perverse reason who are actually eligible.All these make pre-qualification unfair.IV. THE SUCCESSFUL PRACTICES IN FOREIGN PREQUALIFICATION OFCONSTRUCTION PROJECT BIDDING The foreign construction bidding system has been developed and reached maturity and its prequalification also play rightful role in construction bidding. In the U.S.,there are fewer projects which need pre-qualification.Because engineering insurances system provides the functions of pre-qualification for contractor.This strict and effective professional pre-qualification of credit for contractors replaces market access control by administrative means and owners self-investigation.Guarantee company assesses the contractors risk usually based on Standards 4CCharacter, Capital, Capability and Continuity. Britains official authorities usually have a list of qualified contractors;while,the owners also hold one.The tender can select bidders from the list of qualified contractors according the project characteristics and requirements when bidding. Tenderer need to monitor and regularly update their lists of qualified bidders,excluding those companies whose performing are poor and absorbing those new companies whose quality levels、technical capacity、financial capacity are all qualified.List of qualified contractors is a social affirmation of the contractors credibility.It is also a long-term mechanism to effectively guide the contractor to improve their overall strength and credibility. The Japanese government has established a set of contractor qualifications appraisal system for public project in the early 90s of last century.The objective evaluation system for construction enterprises management and the technology is “the management item examination” and ”Registration of qualified operators” based on“the Architecture industry Law”. Based on this system, the contracting-out authority carries on the qualification examination on contractor who participates in the bidding according to the project scale, the type and other commercial terms standard and then makes the qualifications name list. FIDIC thought that the purpose of pre-qualification is to determine the list of eligible companies, while also ensuring the bidding have a certain competitive.It allows that the number of pre-qualified companies should not exceed 7. FIDIC usually uses quite simple hundred-mark system direction detection grading to make a comprehensive determination for the companies applying for pre-qualification.The lowest score of the pre-qualification is 60. Those companies whose score is below the lowest should be eliminated. “World Bank Purchase Guide” article 2.9 provides that:For large or complex works, or the high costs of preparing detailed bidding documents which may be anti-competitive, prequalification is usually necessary. Prequalification should be fully based on the potential bidderscapability and resources to perform the contracts. The Banks“Prequalification Document for Procurement of Works and Users Guide”also consider that under the transparency condition the advantages of pre-qualification for large projects can greatly outweigh its shortcomings.In addition,the World Bank Loan Project attaches great importance to review the financial situation of bidders,and usesmandatory Standards Act”. Each auditing index sets pass/fail criteria.Prequalifications characteristics of bidding projects in the above countries or organizations are represented as Table 1.V. THE INSPIRATION FROM FOREIGN PRE-QUALIFICATION Basing on successful practices in foreign countries and against the problems of pre-qualification in China,this paper makes the following suggestions for improvement: A. Focusing on the applicability of pre-qualification Pre-qualification has advantages and disadvantages.In order to make its advantages outweigh disadvantages, we should focus on its application conditions. Prequalification is useful not only to complex or high-value bidding projects, but also to the lower-value, which has complex technique or highly specialization bidding projects. As recommended by the World Bank,public project which is a large(usually considered more than a million dollars)and sophisticated technology needs pre-qualification.Selecting different standards of review for different projects highlights inspecting the contractors ability to undertake the project inorder to reduce the owners risk; for small or simple works,prequalification is optional. B. Highlight the comprehensive review of the capacity of enterprises The role of pre-qualification is to choose a company which has the capability of undertaking the project. But existing indicator system of pre-qualification does not meet this requirement.Under the premise of using qualification management system to our construction enterprises and corresponding system of periodic audits, pre-qualification should focuses on examining the comprehensive capacity of enterprises combining with the characteristics of the bidding project, such as:the capability of performance,controlling risks and undertaking project. Based on 4C Standards used by American guarantee company to assess the contractors risk, we can examine enterprises the management level, staff quality, corporate culture, organizational structure, risk management, environmental characteristics, financial status, etc., and for different project requirements highlight examining particular aspect of characteristics.C. Encourage to use the approach which does not limit the number of successful applicants in pre-qualification Qualified system is encouraged to use under normal circumstances. All the bidders who meet the eligibility criteria provided in the prequalification documents should be allowed to participate in the bidding, and there is no limit to the number of pre-qualified bidders. On the one hand, it encourages full competition and is beneficial for the owners to choose the most suitable contractor; on the other hand, this reduces the possibility of collusive bidding between the bidders. Supposing the system of limited number is adopted, it should use “comprehensive quantitative assessment” with more comprehensive indicators.The selection of indicators can refer to the method recommended by FIDIC and the 4C standards in the U.S project guarantee. In order to prevent collusive bidding, it should select several potential bidders as much as possible sorting by scores of high and low. D. Qualification criteria should be objective and impartial In order to minimize the subjective factors of the evaluation, conditions of qualification should be precise and easy to precisely judge. Learning from the World Banks approach, all the standards of pre-qualification should be quantified or set pass/fail criteria, without flexibility indictor.If the applicant does not meet these standards essentially, it will be considered unqualified. This is worthwhile for us to learn. while using qualified assessment approach,passing or failing to pass the indictor should be well-defined without being affected by human factors. While using the system of limiting number, the applicants should be scored and sorted.The indicators which could be quantized should be quantization as far as possible, the indicator which could not be quantitated should be clearly defined, and then score the indictors according to actual situation. E. Give full play to the role of market mechanism to promote market-oriented qualification management As can be seen through the above analysis,Europe and the United States focus on free competition without Government grading system. It depends on mutual restriction between subjects of market transactions. Japan has a relatively simple management system of construction qualification, but focus on the dynamic and long-term of management of the contractor qualifications. Considering the reality of our country, a third-party of market entity can take the responsibility of qualification.Learning from the U.S.s experience, implement project guarantee system and quality review was completed by the bonding companies by the balances between the rights and obligations. It makes the market mechanisms operate fully. The industries association which is established by the enterprises themselves is entrusted and authorized to take charge the details of qualification management. This can further improve the efficiency of qualification management and achieve the dynamic of m