Matching tender price:
There were 4 packages for bidding: Chemicals for tests; consumable medical supplies; testing tools and materials for departments of ophthalmology and dental; the surgery strings.
All were opened on 16 Apr 2009 with the total value of more than 77 billion.
Many of the products were bid for the exact price offered matching in each individual figure to the decimal number.
According to an official of the Ministry of Health, the matching of the same prices cannot be done by chance.
Especially in the reagents package, there were 862 products with total value of approximately 50 billion (VND).
Of these, there were just over 20 products having two bidders for each product, the rest each attracted only one single bid.
Most products have the bid price and tender price matching.
After the auction, on 21 July 2009, the director Dang Quang Tho signed a contract with the winning companies.
The contract signed with the Deputy Director of the Luc Tinh Trade -Technical Service Company Ltd, Nguyen Thanh Phong, was worth nearly 16 billion VND for 378 different chemicals.
Many of those products have the winning bid price matching the tender price.
For example, product code XN0510 price 1,310,904 VND per box, product code XN0989 price 2,467,117 VND / unit, product XN 0991 price 2,993,585 VND / unit.
Contract signed with Ngo Thi Cat Tien, on behalf of the Director of VIMEDIMEX Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company, with 287 types of chemicals, worth more than $ 16 billion.
Among them many high-priced products also match the tender price, such as product XN0375 price 24,360,000 VND / box, product XN0385 price 33,600,000 VND / box.
High prices, low aggregate score:
Unlike the above packages, for the 3 packages left, there were many companies participating in the bidding, with some products attracting more than 10 bidders.
Many winning bids also have matching price, some even higher than the tender price.
In bidding, the price is one factor to be considered in conjunction with other factors to evaluate a comprehensive product set in the “overall score”.
However for a number of winning products they were given to bidders even having not only high bidding price but also low overall score.
In the package of consumable medical supplies, the winning product VT134 of Lam Son Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd was the highest price of the six companies participating in the bidding but their general point lower than two other bidders.
Product VT072 of Nguyen Lam Trade -Technical Services Co Ltd costs more than one bidder but having four points lower overall score than the 4 others.
Many products have been rewarded to higher-priced bids with the lowest overall score, as in the surgical strings package, for example product CPT007, CPT030 CPT029.
Especially in the package for testing equipment and supplies for ophthalmology and dental departments, The Mekong River Image Technology Co., Ltd was given four winning products at the highest price but with the lowest overall score.
Irregularities
For testing chemical for liver disease and HIV are often expensive and having large value contracts, most were given winning bids with high price and lowest overall scores.
Product XN0698 used for chemical tests of liver disease, a firm bid only 45% of the tender price with the general score of 30, but failed; The Luc Tinh Trade – Technology Co Ltd was the winner even though their bidding price was the same price as the tender price with the total score of only 5.
For testing chemicals for HIV, VIMEDIMEX the winning product XN0362 price coincides with the tender price and with the lowest score while the bidding price of other businesses are only 85% of the tender price and with higher scores, but they were not given the bid.
For the chemical tests of liver disease and HIV, the reason for not winning the bid even with lower bidding price and in general higher score was stated in the dossier as “inconsistent with the device configuration at the hospital” despite the fact that the testing devices were not even present at the two departments at the time the bid was open.
They were then later installed by the winner of the bid.
In general, the reasons for choosing the products with high bidding price but low overall score were cited in the records as “selected by the tender board.”
This is contrary to the provisions in the bidding documents that the winning products were selected must have high overall score.
The tender board included many hospital officials and hospital staff and chaired by the Director Dang Quang Tam.
Nguyen Thi Ngoc TienPhong New spaper
MarketLink2Vietnam Consulting Corp. 