In case a school project is funded with the state budget of the province, the project belongs to group B, in the contractor selection plan approved by the Provincial People's Committee, has an audited package price of less than VND 500 million and has the form of contractor selection is appointment of contractor, so according to Decree No. 99/2021/ND-CP, is this bidding package designated as a contractor according to regulations? If not, how to do it?

The Ministry of Finance responded to this issue as follows:

At Point a, Clause 3, Article 35 of Decree No. 99/2021/ND-CP dated 11/11/2021 of the Government providing for the management, payment and settlement of projects using public investment capital, as follows:

"3. Audit of the final settlement report:

a) When completed, important national projects and group A projects using public investment capital must audit their final settlement reports before submitting them to competent authorities for verification and approval (except for projects on the list of State secret item). For projects using the remaining public investment capital, the person competent to decide on approving the project investment shall consider and decide on bidding for an independent audit to audit the final settlement report.

The investor shall organize the audit bidding in accordance with the provisions of the law on bidding and sign the audit contract in accordance with the provisions of the law on contracts.

In Clause 12, Article 4 of the Law on Bidding No. 43/2013/QH13 dated November 26, 2013 stipulates:

"12. Bidding is the process of selecting contractors to sign and perform contracts for the provision of consulting services, non-advisory services, goods procurement, construction and installation; selection of investors to sign and execute contracts on investment projects in the form of public-private partnerships, investment projects using land on the basis of ensuring competition, fairness, transparency and economic efficiency.

At the same time, in Section 1, Chapter II of the Bidding Law, the form of contractor and investor selection is specified in detail (including: Open bidding (Article 20), limited bidding (Article 21), and appointment of contractors. (Article 22), Competitive offers (Article 23), Direct procurement (Article 24), Self-execution (Article 25), Selection of contractors and investors in special cases (Article 26), Participation in implementation of the community (Article 27)).

Therefore, regarding the bidding (including the independent audit bidding), Mr. Quy is suggested to base on the provisions of the law on bidding to implement.

The Ministry of Finance has comments for Mr. Quy to know and comply with regulations.

According to the Government Newspaper