Tendering process
I READ with interest the article (The Gympie Times, August 2) re the tendering for Government Business Workshop to be held in Gympie, specifically the section relating to tendering for services to local government eg Gympie Regional Council.
The reason contractors are encouraged to tender is to “bulk up” the number of offers so that GRC appears to be offering all contractors an equal opportunity to secure a share of local work if their rates are suitable.
This process thus gives the appearance of being fair and equitable and transparent etc and is meant to give everyone involved a warm fuzzy feeling.
The process for tendering is onerous and time-consuming and therefore comes at considerable cost to prospective contractors.
Once you have been advised by GRC at the end of this process that you have been accepted as a qualified prospective contractor, don’t be surprised if you hardly ever receive a phone call to supply services and if you do it may well be at short notice.
If you can’t supply equipment immediately you may not be asked again any time soon thereafter.
This practice of deliberately requesting supply of equipment at short notice appears to be staged to disadvantage eligible prospective contractors so they can’t complain that they haven’t been offered work.
When you finally realise that something is flawed within the process, you will not get any information from GRC as to why you are not getting a share of the workload.
This is because the tender process whilst offering the appearance of being transparent etc. is actually clouded in secrecy because of the commercial in confidence status.
This clause which is included in the documentation at first sight gives the prospective tenderer faith in the security of the processing of tenders.
The situation exists whereby the rate for equipment which prospective contractors have tendered could well be cheaper than the rates being paid for favoured existing contractors.
However, neither the prospective contractors nor the ratepayers; who after all are footing the bill, will ever know because of the smoke screen and mirrors of the confidentiality process.
These are but a few examples of the operation of the exclusion program so that existing contractors, who have influential contacts in GRC, continue to do the lion’s share of the work, as they know they will be engaged tomorrow, the next day and the day after that and so on.
Because of this advantage to existing contractors, they have the confidence to continue to enlarge their fleet of equipment, while other operators languish.
The long-awaited change over last year to a system that should have been fair and equitable has been manipulated by those in control. It appears the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Greg J Corbet,
Corbet Transport Industries,
Noosa Rd, Gympie.