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Under Taiwan Government Procurement Act, there are two criterions for deciding award of a contract: the lowest price tender and the most advantageous tender. Each criterion serves its own purpose; it is not each has its pros and cons. Recently, there were many disputes on construction delays resulting from constructions with the most advantageous tender criterion, like Kinmen Bridge, Taoyuan International Airport MRT, and Phase II development of Nankang Software Park. That disturbs the Nations expected progress and quality of construction. Therefore, many people were questioning why the most advantageous tender was not used in the first place. The most advantageous tender has been deemed as the panacea for a warrant of quality for major constructions.
However, since implementation of Government Procurement Act in 1998 , there were quite a few abuse cases using the most advantageous tender. During March 2006 , Mr.Su Tseng-chang, Premier of the Executive Yuan at the time, even instructed in Cabinet meeting that "using the lowest price tender as a general rule; using the most advantageous tender as an exception". That indicates the most advantageous tender has its blind spot. Nevertheless, successive Ministers of Public Construction Commission had been urging the most advantageous tender to insure quality of construction; why up to now the results are not convincing?
If we look at previous law amendments about the most advantageous tender, most of them were about regulation in technical level, such as scoring methods etc. The core problems have not been solved, so abuse cases have kept happening.
The key factor in success of the most advantageous tender is in procurement evaluation committee, so it is worth studying topics of evaluation system of the most advantageous tender.
The researcher has been engaged in judicial investigation for long term. He tries to study on possible causes of abuses in real-life operation of procurement evaluation system and propose suggestions for improvement, from a law enforcers abuse-preventing point of view.
This article provides generalized studies on data from 8 trial verdicts from the courts involving abuses and the researchers own work. It summarizes common problems for the most advantageous tender tending to involve abuses; mainly, leakage of member roster of procurement evaluation committee, possible buy-off of committee members, etc.
Moreover, these common problems are further analyzed comprehensively and following are conclusions and suggestions.
1. Make public in advance the member roster of procurement evaluation committee.
2. After award of contract, make public the evaluation opinions and scoring from Committee members during evaluation process in shuffled, anonymous order.
3. Enhance professionals’ will as external committee members.
4. Establish a sole responsible contracting unit (for procurement above certain value).
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