February 2, 2009 · Posted in: Governance, i Report Features, In the News
World Bank, DPWH review same bids but draw opposite conclusions
OUR latest report tackles why and how the World Bank Sanctions Board and the Department of Public Works and Highways reached starkly different conclusions in their separate investigations into the alleged collusion and overpricing among contractors in the National Road Improvement and Management Project (NRIMP).
Authored by senior journalist PCIJ Fellow Roel R. Landingin, this report tracks the exchange of notes between the Bank and the DPWH, and the explanations given by the contractors, including three Philippine companies that had recently been barred from participating in World Bank-funded projects.
For this story, Landingin secured copies of the World Bank Sanctions Board’s decision — that even the Senate could not as yet obtain — and the DPWH’s investigation report.
Read on at pcij.org.
1 Response to World Bank, DPWH review same bids but draw opposite conclusions
tongue in, anew
February 5th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
For billion-peso projects, a 10-million difference in bids is really suspect. 10 million being a mere 1% variance. Even with identical quantities in the bill of materials estimates, there is a wide ballpark that comes to consideration when preparing a bid. For example, mobilization/demobilization per my experience, already amounts to around 3-5% of the cost.
Materials, of course is the biggest factor that determines the price and accounts for about 75% of total cost. Labor, earthmoving equipment and tools, transport, and supervision complete it.
Look at the figures in your table http://www.pcij.org/stories/2008/oda7.html paying special attention to the bid prices in the 2004 and 2006 rounds. Unbelievable. Some prices were almost identical.