Bidding to buy COVID-19 prevention materials in Ba Ria-Vung Tau, raising the price by 900%

Price increase more than 900%

On May 10, the Inspectorate of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province announced inspection conclusions on the procurement of medical equipment, supplies, biological products, test kits, vaccines and drugs to prevent the COVID-19 epidemic on locality. The inspection period is from January 1, 2020 to the end of December 31, 2021.

The inspector of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province also pointed out that the bidding package for the procurement of medical supplies, tools, instruments and disinfectant chemicals in 2020, the Department of Health has approved the contractor selection results as a Vietnamese company. With the winning bid price of more than 11.6 billion VND. However, the winning company did not have the goods available, but bought it from two quotation companies (Dai Phuc Company and Ta Thien An Company). It is worth mentioning that this bidding package Dai Phuc Company bought just over 8.2 billion VND, sold to Viet Tien Company for more than 11.3 billion VND. In addition, there are 24/58 imported items, the difference between the winning price and the import price is 238%.

In the bidding package for the procurement of biological products for testing SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR, the Department of Health of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province approved Ta Thien An Company to win the bid for more than 17.1 billion VND. This company won the bid but bought from Dai Phuc Company (participating in the quotation with 33 items is more than 11.5 billion VND) and Hoang Phat store (more than 310 million VND with 19 items). Thus, this bidding package has a buying price of more than 11.9 billion VND, the difference between the winning price and the buying price is more than 5.2 billion VND.

Bidding package to buy disinfectant chemicals for epidemic prevention and control phase 1 in 2020, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Department of Health and Natural Resources and Environment Company signed a contract with the winning price of more than 1.4 billion VND. According to the report of this company, the purchase price (VAT included) is 121,000 VND/kg (Cloramin B) for a total amount of more than 992 million VND. However, the customs declaration recorded that the import price was just over 17,000 VND/kg. Thus, the difference between the winning bid (Cloramin B) compared to the import price increased by 917%, compared to the purchase price of 28%.

Inspectors of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province discovered that there are many bidding packages invested by the Center for Disease Control of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, with the estimated price of the package and the winning price not yet guaranteed to be close to the market price. , the import price is several times higher than the winning bid price. Specifically, the procurement of chemicals, biological products, RT-PCR testing materials, the inspection agency compares the import prices of 24/25 items according to the customs declarations, the total value is more than 7.1 billion VND. while the winning price was more than 23.3 billion VND (the difference increased by more than 16.2 billion VND).

There is a bid agreement

For the procurement package of SARS-CoV-2 antigen test for COVID-19 prevention and control (phase 5), Armerphaco Company won the bid for 17.5 billion VND, the Inspector of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province discovered. there is a tender agreement.

The Center for Disease Control of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province to prevent the situation of collusion in procurement of SARS-CoV-2 antigen test.

Accordingly, on July 19, 2021, Armerphaco Company just received a notice of the results of the evaluation of the technical proposal according to the notice of the Department of Health of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province.

Then on July 23 and 26, this company and the Department of Health, Center for Disease Control of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province signed an economic contract, handed over and received the property, but before that, from the date July 5-7, Armephaco Company delivered 100,000 tests to the Center for Disease Control of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province.

On August 5, 2021, the Center for Disease Control of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province made a stock receipt according to the form and released to local medical units.

The inspector of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province said that from the receipt of the above goods, it was shown that although the contractor did not know the bidding results, the contractor handed over the goods to the user unit, proving that the contractor knew for sure. on bidding results or there is an agreement between the bid solicitor and the contractor.

Inspectors of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province said that receiving the goods in advance is not an urgent need to put them into use immediately, because they received the goods from July 5, but only after receiving the winning results after August 5. warehouse and put into use.

According to Duy Quang