The contractor won the bid for providing consultancy service of project management, after that it is appointed to verify the construction drawing design, then the appointment of this contractor shall be deemed appropriate with the rules.

Mr. Le Son Tung (in Phu Tho Province) requested the authorities to provide guidance on the following case:

In May 2017, investor A was the procuring entity for project management consultancy in the form of open bidding. The bidding dossier stated clearly that "Any contractors participating in open bidding shall be legally independent. and be financially independent from the following parties: Contractors providing advisory service, including: making, verifying and appraising a construction drawing design dossier; estimating, making, appraising, evaluating a bidding dossier; appraising the results of contractor selection”.

On July 5, 2017, the investor completed the selection process and signed a contract with company B. By July 25, 2017, investor A continued to sign a contract to verify the construction drawing design with Company B in the form of direct appointment (two bidding packages belong to the same investment project).

Mr. Tung would like to ask, in this case, does investor A violate the current regulations on bidding?

In response to this issue, The Ministry of Investment and Planning gives following opinion:

The Ministry of Planning and Investment answers on this issue as follows:

Clause 3, Article 2 of Decree No. 15/2014 / ND-CP of the Government stipulating that a consultancy contractor may provide one or more than one consultancy service for the same project or bidding package, including: making the pre-feasibility report, feasibility report, technical design dossier or construction drawing design dossier, and providing supervision consultancy.

Regarding Mr Tung’s question, contractor B won the bid for providing consultancy service of project management, after that it is appointed to verify the construction drawing design, then the appointment of this contractor shall be deemed appropriate with the rules if the contractor fully meet the following requirements:

- Bidding package of verification of construction drawing design is eligible to apply the form of contractor appointment.

- The scope of work of a project management consultancy package does not include the job of the procurement entity.