Examining the Mechanism of Contracting and Procurement Center in Local Governments─Using Taitung County Government as an Example

• Main Authors: Da-shen Chou, 周達成
• Other Authors: He-yuan Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/99099968901280654029

碩士 === 國立高雄應用科技大學 === 土木工程與防災科技研究所 === 91 === ABSTRACT The enforcement of the Government Procurement Law has significant impacts on Taiwan’s economic activities. Various old rules and regulations are integrated and new regulations applicable to the international procurement market have been established. The aim of the Government Procurement Law is to improve the efficiency and function of procurement with fair and open procurement procedures so as to ensure the quality of procurement. Procurement contracting is a very important key in the entire process of government procurement; hence, the central government proposed the idea of setting up consolidated contracting centers in June 2000 and the idea was formally put into practice in September 2002. Taitung County Government was the first county to establish a contracting center when the Government Procurement Law was enacted and enforced in July 1998. Through many negotiations and discussions with various procurement units, the County Government established a complete set of procurement procedures. The impressive result of the procurement procedures was greatly praised and trusted by all. Nevertheless, in view of the development of new procurement functions, local governments have to speed up and set up electronic and information-based procurement procedures to meet the market demand and to improve the procurement efficiency of the government. Originally, procurement contracting personnel in different governmental organizations and schools in Taitung were employees or teachers who had not received any relevant professional training and saw it as a part-time job. Their neglect often leads to violation of laws in the bidding process. For instance, in April 1998, a lot of school procurement personnel were investigated for the case of councilman subsidy and it was found that these part-time procurement personnel were usually not familiar with the relevant procurement laws. Because of this, in the meeting of government ethics supervision on April 28, 1998, the County Government decided to establish a contracting center which would be in charge of procurement contracting for the County Government, as well as governmental organization and schools in Taitung. During the initial preparation process of the contracting center, the Taitung County Government established a workgroup of procurement efficiency. Members of the workgroup held 15 meetings in which they modified relevant laws and regulations, streamline the procedures and completed their tasks in two stages with creative and innovative ideas. In the first stage, the contracting center is established with eight new laws and regulations and one modified regulation. In the second stage, three standardized operation procedures were established while eight operation procedures were modified according to the Government Procurement Law. The objectives are set to save 600 million NT dollars a year (which is equivalent to the tax revenue of the County), to save 145 part-time procurement personnel, to reduce the cost of bidding for private companies and to prevent bidding collusion or other malpractice to enhance the government ethics. Upon implementation, it is estimated that the center has helped to save 3032.3 million NT dollars for the government after four years and six months (by December 2002). In other words, the center saves 673.84 million NT dollars every year which exceeds the original goal by the end of 2002. The significant achievement of the contracting center of Taiwan County Government helped the County Government win the Silver Axe of Government Procurement in the 2002 Refinement of National Laws and Regulations（while the Public Construction Commission of the Executive Yuan won the Gold Axe）. In addition, among all governmental organizations (including all units in the Central Government) that conduct procurement openly, Taitung County Government ranked No. 7 in the year of 2002. It is thus obvious that providing a good procurement environment is a good way to improve efficiency. At present, the government is very active in promoting reorganization and streamlining. Various governmental organizations have worked to establish a procurement contracting center that is professional, efficient, open and transparent. They hope to provide a procurement environment with good service, reasonable cost and high quality to assist organizations or units with inadequate professional procurement staff or capability to implement various procurement projects and budgeting. In the implementation process, it is hoped that local governments can provide a one-stop procurement service (which includes contract performance management and acceptance inspection) and enhance professional training of the procurement personnel in various town and city offices. By doing so, the procurement personnel can conduct procurement with innovative procedures and improve procurement efficiency with the concept of professional procurement brokerage and integration of procurement process. Furthermore, local governments should supervise grass root organizations and help them establish a complete set of procurement procedures while political interference should be reduced to the minimum so as to reduce the pressured exerted on professional procurement personnel. This paper reviews the enforcement of government procurement policy, explains the Government Procurement Law and analyzes the government procurement mechanism and local implementation of procurement. The procedures of the procurement contracting center established by Taitung County Government as well as the actual results were analyzed systematically in the paper which can later be used as important reference for all local governments for the implementation of procurement.