Turnkey Evaluation Method... Allegations of Specific Contractor Selection Raised

During the process of selecting qualified contractors for design and construction work through the turnkey (implementation design) method, allegations have been raised that page display methods in design documents, which are unrelated to design and construction capabilities, caused problems. The lowest bidding company was disqualified, resulting in 8.3 billion won in wasted taxpayer funds.

Additionally, it has been claimed that on the day of the turnkey evaluation, a proposal was passed to change the score difference between companies from 5 points to 10 points, which widened the evaluation score gap among companies and led to 6.1 billion won in budget waste.

Regarding these results, suspicions have been raised that arbitrary evaluation criteria and standards were applied to select a specific contractor.

● Application of Evaluation Criteria Unrelated to Technical Capability

Councilmember Lee Jong-pil (representing Seodun, Guun, and Ipbuk-dong) raised questions during a city council question session on the 3rd, calling the turnkey evaluation method for contractor selection for the road construction between Gosaeok Intersection and the Suwon City boundary and the Suwon City recycling infrastructure development project full of suspicions.

The road construction project between Gosaeok Intersection and Omokcheon-dong near the Suwon City boundary, completed in December of last year, involved a total project cost of 47.3 billion won for a 2.567-kilometer section.

According to Councilmember Lee Jong-pil, in the evaluation for selecting a qualified contractor for implementation design conducted on August 10, 2005, S Construction, which submitted the highest bid of 37.42 billion won, was selected as the qualified contractor over ㅅ Construction Company, which submitted the lowest bid of 29.08 billion won—83 billion won less than S Construction's bid.

In this process, ㅅ Construction Company used Roman numeral notation instead of the hyphen "(-)" page marking format specified in the design document guidelines for 1,882 pages, resulting in a 1,882-point deduction. This was capped at 5 points, resulting in a final score of 85.11 points.

Meanwhile, S Construction received a 0.6-point deduction due to factors such as material violations, achieving a final score of 86.06 points—a 0.95-point difference ahead of ㅅ Construction Company, making it the selected qualified contractor. In the bidding price and implementation capability section, ㅅ Construction Company scored 46.5 points, exceeding S Construction's 45.21 points by 1.29 points.

Ultimately, in situations where both companies received nearly identical scores in planning, constructability, and safety, if the evaluation criterion of page marking method—unrelated to design and construction capabilities—had been excluded, ㅅ Construction Company would have received 90.11 points and been selected as the qualified contractor, according to the councilmember's point.

● Qualified Contractor Evaluation Results Even Received Last Year's Audit Office Criticism

Furthermore, when the Board of Audit and Inspection pointed out in the first half of last year that S Construction also had the deduction factor of design document outlines marked on 631 pages, the city only arbitrarily applied it to the cover section, imposing a deduction of less than 1 point.

Councilmember Lee Jong-pil stated, "Whether the page display method clause was not applied or the audit office's findings were applied as stated, ㅅ Construction Company would have been selected," and criticized that "8.3 billion won in taxpayer funds was wasted as a result of deductions for the page marking method of design documents, which is unrelated to technical capability."

Additionally, in the December 4, 2007 evaluation for selecting a qualified contractor for the Suwon City recycling infrastructure (total project cost: 26.59 billion won) implementation design (basic design), a proposal was passed on the day of evaluation to change the score difference between companies from 5 points to 10 points, the councilmember claims, which significantly widened the score gap among companies.

Councilmember Lee Jong-pil argued that because of this, instead of ㅎ Company (株), which submitted the lowest bid of 16.488 billion won, (株)H Construction, which submitted the highest bid of 22.605 billion won—6.11 billion won more—was selected, resulting in 14.4 billion won in wasted taxpayer funds due to the turnkey method.

In response, Vice Mayor Ye Chang-geun stated, "Suwon City proceeded with turnkey construction without knowing the bid amounts by contractor," and added, "The page display method criterion was announced and explained in advance to all participating companies before the evaluation, and was applied as planned since fairness issues could arise."

Vice Mayor Ye also said, "Rather than low-cost bidding, we conducted the turnkey evaluation to assess design and construction capabilities and block substandard construction from low-cost bidding."

Regarding this turnkey evaluation method, Councilmember Lee Jong-pil raised suspicions, stating, "Arbitrary evaluation criteria that are not uniformly applied to turnkey evaluations nationwide were applied, and these were interpreted arbitrarily to select a specific contractor, weren't they?"

Meanwhile, the turnkey method is a construction method in which design and construction are contracted together, adopted for various large-scale projects and facilities requiring specialized techniques in specific fields.