Qualification examination is an important management link in project bidding activities, which ensures that the relevant subjects involved in bidding activities really have the ability to undertake the project, and forms a guarantee for the smooth realization of the quality, investment, progress and safety control objectives of the construction project. According to Article 17 of the Measures for Tendering and Bidding of Construction Projects issued by Decree No.30 of seven ministries and commissions, qualification examination is divided into pre-qualification examination and post-qualification examination. The former refers to the qualification examination of potential bidders before bidding; The latter refers to the qualification examination of bidders after bid opening.
1Since June 2000, the former Ministry of Construction has promulgated the Measures for the Administration of Bidding for Housing Construction and Municipal Infrastructure Projects (Order No.89 of the Ministry of Construction), which stipulates that "the tenderee may pre-qualify the bidding applicants according to the needs of the project subject to tender". As the main way of bidding qualification management, prequalification has been quickly applied to the bidding activities of national construction projects. Since this century, prequalification has effectively played an important role in optimizing bidding management, reducing the difficulty and workload of bid evaluation, improving project quality and contract performance. At the same time, however, the problems brought by the pre-qualification link, such as prolonging the bidding cycle, increasing the bidding cost and providing opportunities for illegal activities such as colluding with bids, also call for further improvement and optimization of the qualification examination system.
1, the role and defects of prequalification
Pre-qualification refers to the qualification examination of potential bidders before bidding. Specifically, a tenderer issues a prequalification announcement or an invitation to bid to unspecified potential bidders before issuing a tender announcement or an invitation to bid, and requires potential bidders to submit an application for prequalification and relevant certification materials; Then, the tenderer will organize the bid qualification examination committee to examine the bid applicants according to the pre-qualification conditions, standards and methods determined in the pre-qualification announcement and pre-qualification documents, and determine qualified potential bidders.
Pre-qualification optimization of bidding management
The original intention of establishing the "prequalification" system is mainly to reduce the difficulty and workload of bid evaluation and improve the project quality and contract performance. In the early bidding activities of construction projects, due to the lack of a relatively perfect market access screening mechanism, project bidding often attracts a large number of market bidders. Among them, each bidder's financial strength, enterprise qualification grade, talent and technical reserve, management ability and so on are different, which does not meet the requirements of project bidding. Therefore, bid evaluation activities are faced with heavy tasks and high difficulty, which inevitably increases the bidding cost.
The appearance of prequalification has established an effective access screening mechanism for project bidding management;
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On the one hand, the tenderer can effectively reduce the number of bidders, reduce the workload of subsequent bid evaluation and reduce the difficulty of bid evaluation through pre-qualification procedures and requirements; ?
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On the other hand, the comprehensive strength of the bidder's enterprise, such as financial strength, qualification grade, talent technology, management ability, etc., has an important impact on the quality of construction projects, construction safety production, construction period, investment control and other important project management objectives. Pre-qualification can reasonably screen out potential bidders who have the ability to complete all the construction requirements of the project, eliminate high-risk enterprises with real intentions, and ensure the realization of the quality, safety, investment and schedule objectives of the construction project.
Defects in prequalification
Pre-qualification establishes an effective access screening mechanism for bidding management, but it also adds complicated links to bidding activities. Under the pre-qualification mode, the activity cycle, bidding cost, information confidentiality and market order of construction project bidding are greatly affected.
Pre-qualification increases the bidding cycle and bidding cost.
Pre-qualification includes many activities such as "preparing pre-qualification documents", "issuing pre-qualification announcement", "submitting pre-qualification documents" and "reviewing pre-qualification documents", which consumes a lot of time, manpower and cost for tenderers and bidders.
Pre-qualification has many links, long cycle, complicated personnel and difficult confidentiality.
How long does the prequalification include? It involves many activities such as purchasers, bidding agencies and potential bidding suppliers, and the personnel are complex, which brings certain risks to the confidentiality of relevant information (name, quantity and contact information of potential bidding suppliers, etc.). ) and provides an opportunity for bidding activities.
The actual examination of prequalification is invalid.
Objectively, the prequalification process increases the time period and various costs of the overall bidding activities, so the tenderee often does not attach importance to the actual authenticity of the application materials in the prequalification activities, and lacks reliable and efficient means of information identification, which encourages the fraudulent behavior of bidders.
Lending qualifications are prevalent, and affiliated activities are common.
Under the pre-qualification mode, the enterprise qualification grade has become an important factor for all kinds of construction enterprises to participate in the construction market competition. In bidding practice, it is not uncommon for some bidders who do not have the corresponding enterprise qualifications to participate in bidding under the guise of other companies with better qualifications; The phenomenon that construction enterprises and individuals lend qualifications and charge fees once became a common phenomenon in the market. The actual constructors of a large number of engineering quality and safety accidents are often not seemingly high-quality enterprises, but various contractors who lack formal enterprise qualifications.
In recent years, with the emergence of serious irregularities in the bidding market, such as "qualification attachment" and "collusive bidding", which have a bad impact on the quality and safety of construction projects and the normative order of the construction market, the state has paid more and more attention to the standardized management of the bidding market. "Post-qualification examination" has gradually replaced "pre-qualification examination" as the main way of bidding qualification examination in the construction market, and it is one of the important contents.
2. Post-qualification review, review and move back, and optimize management.
Post-qualification examination refers to the qualification examination of bidders by the bid evaluation committee according to the bidding qualification conditions stipulated in the bidding documents after the bid opening. The main difference between post-qualification examination and pre-qualification examination lies in the different qualification examination time of bidders: pre-qualification examination is the qualification examination of potential bidders before bidding, and it does not belong to the activity content of bid evaluation stage; Post-qualification examination is the qualification examination of bidders after bid opening, which belongs to the activity content of bid evaluation stage.
Compared with the pre-qualification method, the post-qualification examination will move the qualification examination of bidders to after the bid opening, which can not only simplify the bidding procedure, shorten the bidding period and reduce the cost of tenderers and bidders; It can also effectively avoid the leakage of bidding information, prevent the occurrence of irregular behaviors such as collusive bidding and collusive bidding, and standardize the order of the construction market.
Simplify the bidding procedure and shorten the bidding period
Before the formal bid opening, the project subject to pre-qualification needs to complete the "pre-qualification" link, and the tenderer needs to prepare pre-qualification documents, issue pre-qualification announcements and organize pre-qualification selection; Bidders need to purchase pre-qualification documents, submit pre-qualification applications, and wait for the results of qualification evaluation before entering the formal bid opening. It can be seen that the prequalification is actually to divide the bidding activity that can be completed once into two times, and the bidding period is increased by about half.
In the mode of post-qualification examination, the tenderer will move the qualification examination of bidders back, and no longer set up the qualification examination before bid opening separately. Bidders do not need to prepare pre-qualification documents in advance, and they also avoid "one bid and two strokes", which directly saves the next complete cycle of bid opening, bid evaluation and result publicity.
Avoid information leakage and curb collusion
"Post-qualification review" removes the complicated links in the previous "pre-qualification" mode, reduces the contact of personnel information before bid opening, and effectively avoids the disclosure of bidding information. Especially with the rapid development of electronic bidding management in China, the process and behavior of post-qualification examination have changed from offline to online. Digital and information technology not only overcome physical space barriers, but also optimize the examination process. At the same time, the online operation of the whole process, the traceability of data and the traceability of information further avoid the risk problems such as information leakage, collusive bidding and artificial manipulation, which is conducive to strengthening market supervision and standardizing market order.
Before the notice of Jiangxi Province, several provinces (cities) issued documents, proposing to gradually cancel the pre-qualification and fully implement the post-qualification examination of bidders. But as far as practical application is concerned, the prequalification of bidders is still the main qualification examination method in the current project bidding market. However, considering the current development trend of whole-process electronic bidding and the important role of whole-process electronic bidding management in promoting the post-qualification review mode, the post-qualification review mode of bidders will also usher in faster application and development.