Challenges in Procurement of Works in Design Bid Build Institutional Projects

Abstract

Tendering is an important stage of any project and is a well laid founding platform to project works execution. A contractor or construction company well hired is an important milestone in project’s development process. Although procurement is a very systematic process, but challenges exist in implementation of the detailed steps. Procurement errors not only causes issues in contract administration, but also create a base for delays and cost escalation which may in the worst case led the project to be stalled or even fail as well. Any discrepancies associated with such public projects have direct implications on the taxpayers. Due to ethical and regulatory requirements, the public procurement process is vulnerable to a number of malpractices that impair the system's overall functionality. As procurement issues not only lead to tender stage difficulties but are also partially responsible for the reasons which leads to execution problems, disputes, delays and cost over runs. Selection of a contractor or a construction company inherently has many challenges involved in it. For the purpose being, despite of the presence of relevant generic procurement manuals, but errors are still happening by the procurement officials. Challenges have also been faced by prospective bidders as well due to haphazard quality and sequence of the information been provided by the procuring agencies to the bidders. Hence there is a need  and area of concern, which requires further investigation after mapping the entire tender process for the procurement of works in detail. In continuation, a fair number of tenders do not meet their desired outcome of selecting a contractor in an efficient way and fail. Right from the preparation of the tender drawings their required level of detailing, quality of estimation including quantification and rates, completeness of the tender document contents to the pain of extensive evaluation of the bids received, their further justification and award of the works. The causes of tender failure in the form of underlying causes of tender failure been found, verified and documented. Further ways to improve the tendering success has been achieved by means of intangible outcome of process improvement strategies for procurement of works to mitigate challenges and tangible outcome of standardized tender document review and improvement checklist to cater challenges. All the efforts have been taken to achieve all the objectives in a best possible manner and provide a documented reference to add to the pool of knowledge for the information available in the existing manuals, codes and standards for works procurement.