Unequal treatment of bidders

It is important that all bidders are treated equally throughout the bid process. Providing favourable treatment to one bidder can enable an improper outcome.

For example:

• allowing only one bidder to provide clarification of its bid
• allowing a bidder to alter its bid under the guise of providing clarification
• allowing a bidder to bid on a different basis to the other bidders
• providing confidential information on the evaluation process, estimate of contract price, or other bids, only to one bidder
• accepting a bid after bid-closing deadline.

Bid documents enable corrupt variations or price adjustments

A procurement manager or design engineer may ensure that the bid documents are written in a manner which allows corrupt variations or price adjustments during construction phase.  For example:

• The bill of quantities (BOQ) may specify a small quantity of components in one category when the likelihood is that the quantity will be materially increased after contract award.  This fact will be communicated to the corruptly pre-selected bidder enabling it to put a high price on that component, resulting in significant profit once the variation is instructed.
• The conditions of contract may remove the requirement for a price adjustment in the event of material change of BOQ quantities, or remove the requirement for a re-bid of a major variation, resulting in a windfall profit for the winning bidder.

Abuse of emergency or other exemption procedures

Procurement regulations may allow exemption from competitive procurement in cases of emergency (e.g. natural disaster) or if a product is unique.

This exemption may be abused by a procurement manager or public official so as to enable corrupt selection of a bidder.  For example:

• In the case of a genuine emergency, it may be possible to obtain competitive bids under an expedited timetable, but the procurement manager may corruptly place a contract at a high price without a competitive process.
• The emergency or exempt situation may be artificially created:
  • by delaying an action until it becomes an emergency,
  • by falsely declaring an emergency, or
  • by falsely stating that there is only one possible product or seller.