On April 20, 2012, Minister Jenn-Chuan Chern of the Public Construction Commission (PCC) led his staffs to visit Yung-Fu Tseng, Minister of Justice, to exchange views of establishing a clean and effective environment for public construction. Several topics were discussed including anti-corruption mechanism in public construction, and the arbitration system concerned by the construction industry.
Minister Chern said that in order to strengthen the anti-corruption mechanism in public construction and to create a clean environment for public construction, PCC will initiate an Anti-corruption Declaration which will be co-signed in mid-May by relevant associations of business sectors, government agencies, and Transparency International. In response to Minister Chern’s enthusiastic request, Minister Tseng gave his full support in this regard.
Minister Chern also wished that Ministry of Justice(MOJ) recommends its senior officials to be the members of various evaluation committees of government procurement implemented by procurement entities. With their assistance, civil servants are expected to be more willing to do the right thing and daring to make decisions, thus improve the quality of public construction. As for the examination service to juridical cases, Minister Chern recommended that MOJ may prescribe qualification requirements for institutions or natural persons who provide the examination service in order to ensure the quality of examination service in public construction.
Minister Chern also mentioned that in order to use the professionals of non-governmental organizations to resolve the contractual dispute of public construction by arbitration, PCC looks forward to promoting jointly with MOJ to stipulate supporting measures in the model contract for public construction in order to encourage procuring entities to resolve contractual disputes by arbitration, such as the number of arbitrators, the appointment of arbitrators, and the disclosure of arbitration procedure. By doing so, the dispute resolution mechanism will be in line with the international practices, and construction sector’s competitiveness will be enhanced.