In order to encourage procuring entities to adopt “New Policies and Practices for Public Constructions”, Minister of State and Public Construction Commission(PCC) Jenn-Chuan Chern, held a meeting on July 3 with participants including Deputy Minister of Ministry of Culture, Deputy Mayor of New Taipei City, Deputy Magistrates of Hsinchu County, Changhua County, Yunlin County, and Pingtung County.
Main Topics of the following were introduced in the meeting: (1) civil servants should be competent, willing, and daring to do his/her job; heads of the entities should be impartial, of integrity, and willing to authorize subordinates to procure construction services of good quality for the people; (2) to select the best teams for planning, design and construction by the most advantageous award procedures; (3) senior civil servants to serve as members of Procurement Evaluation Committee to provide assistance to other entities; (4) superior entities assist subordinate entities by signing inter-entity technical service supply contracts or open contracts; (5) prescribe model terms and conditions for arbitration in various model contracts for contracting parties to resolve the contract disputes efficiently via arbitration; (6) anti-corruption by procuring entities and suppliers; (7) expand participation in public infrastructure by capital from private sector.
During the meeting, Deputy Magistrate Chia-bin Zhong recognized the contributions of whistleblowing from the public in improving the quality of public construction. However, he regretted that heads of local governments sometimes have to deal with lobbying from contractors impartially, and the heavy responsibility with little reward for the work of Procurement Evaluation Committee members. Deputy Mayor Lee suggested to provide a good environment for design-build contracts and the most advantageous award procedures; particularly the prosecution and investigation authorities may reasonably distinguish administrative mistakes from criminal acts when investigating suspected government procuring cases conducted by civil servants. Several other suggestions were proposed: relaxing the terms for using the incentive funds for private participation in infrastructure projects, boosting the spirit of procuring personnel by providing additional pay, etc.
Minister Jenn-Chuan Chern concluded that PCC will work with all ministerial departments and local governments to establish an environment of integrity, justice, and reasonableness for public construction, so that to diminish or put an end to inappropriate interferences and doubts from outside. With the mutual efforts and cooperation of all entities and civil servants, and the implementing of a new mechanism for public construction, it is expected that people will have more respects to the construction entities and construction personnel.