In 2017, the Wuhan Municipal Audit Bureau found out the problem of overestimating and calculating the project price through a comprehensive review and verification of the completion settlement data and even the bidding information in the audit of the road construction project, and instructed the relevant units to deal with it.
In the audit of a number of road projects, the audit team first cleaned up and counted all the change visa ledgers according to the pre-designed tables, and then found out suspicious matters from them.
The auditors found that there were many doubts about the change visa form for measures such as "adding stool bars to the structural floor and roof" and "foundation pit support".
Stool reinforcement is a steel bar that ensures the stability of the steel skeleton and plays the role of supporting the surface reinforcement of the fixed structure, commonly known as stool reinforcement or bench reinforcement, and its setting is a measure item; Foundation pit slope support is a measure project to ensure the safe construction of the main structure or component located underground. Measures refer to: in order to complete the construction of the project, occur before and during the construction of the project, mainly refer to the technology, life, safety and other aspects of the non-engineering entity project.
Because the measure project is a non-engineering entity project, some of them usually do not give specific and clear practices in the design drawings, and the construction party considers the measures to complete the construction of the project; Although some designs give different measures and practices in different situations, in the actual construction, the construction party can also complete the construction of the project by adopting other measures; In addition, in the bill of quantities, some measure items are prepared as "items" for the construction party to quote, and the specific group price cannot be seen.
Based on the above situation, the construction unit often makes a big fuss about the measure project:
In one case, if the cost of the measures agreed in the contract is not allowed to be adjusted, the construction party will try to save on the basis of the original measure project, simplify the process, reduce the process, and replace the measure plan proposed in the original design with a cheaper cost plan.
The other situation is to create conditions that make the measures change, overturn the original quoted measures and reorganize the price.
The above situations are for the purpose of seeking high profits, so the audit team will take the measures as the focus of the stool tendons, foundation pit support, etc.
Regarding the change cost of adding stool tendons, at first, the auditors directly issued an audit certificate and recommended a reduction in the project price in accordance with Article 7 of the "Instructions for Filling in the Bill of Quantities", "once the bidder wins the bid, the construction measures within the risk range will be contracted, and such costs will not be adjusted during the construction process and completion settlement".
Encountering resistance from several parties, from the construction party to the tracking audit unit, they all said that they could not recognize, and the construction party also preferred the opinions of the construction party at the coordination meeting, and even the cost engineer of the cost consulting unit who cooperated with the audit also thought that it was difficult to reduce this cost. The reason is that the construction party believes that there is no such item in the design drawings, and the stool reinforcement should be incorporated into the solid reinforcement in the list item to calculate it according to the facts, and does not agree to reduce it. The follow-up auditors believe that there is a visa for on-site processing, and the construction party actually implements the measure, so it should be calculated.
For a time, the audit work was at an impasse, but the auditors were not discouraged at all, with many years of audit experience to reorganize their thinking, and determined that the visa should be a major suspicion of false statements, since a single contract clause could not be convincing, the audit team discussed and decided to sort out all the change information, bidding materials and contract documents again.
First of all, after the study of the construction party's bid, it is found that the construction organization design prepared in response to the substantive requirements of the bidding documents contains the content of installation, support and fixing of steel bars.
Secondly, check the bidding drawings and construction design drawings, and the two versions of the drawings are consistent with the bottom plate, roof plate and U-shaped groove structure bottom plate of the channel frame structure, and there is no design change.
Again, carefully check the full set of information of the construction party on the addition of stool tendons:
Step 1: In the construction process, the construction party first reported to the supervision, Party A and the design institute in the form of "construction technical contact sheet" on the grounds that "the bottom plate, roof plate and U-shaped groove structure floor of the channel frame structure are thick, in order to facilitate construction", and the design institute signed "the situation is true, agree" and sealed, and the design institute stamped and signed "agree" on the attached drawings.
Step 2: (Construction Party) Then further submit a change application to the owner, and the supervisor and Party A's on-site representative sign and seal the "Engineering Design Change Application Contact Form".
Step 3: Finally, the "Engineering Quantity On-site Visa Form" signed by the supervisor and Party A's on-site representative and the "Project Change Order" signed and sealed by the person in charge of the tracking audit unit and Party A's planning and operation department and accompanied by the approved cost were formed.
At this point, it seems that the construction party has completed the procedures and procedures for the addition of stool tendons, and has done enough homework for the calculation of the cost at the time of settlement.
However, from the study of the tender documents, it is known that the construction party has considered the corresponding measures on how to fix and support the reinforcement. At the same time, through the thorough reading, careful analysis, careful study and repeated scrutiny of the bidding documents, Q&A, addendum and all the contract documents formed, it was found that there were many detailed agreements on measures and costs in the contract documents, which limited the calculation of the cost.
At this point, the audit team has thoroughly analyzed the visa situation, notified the construction party to come to communicate, and showed them the chapter on how to fix and support the steel bar as stated in the bid, and they continued to argue that the preparation of the technical bid and the commercial bid are not the same person, and the cost of the measure is not considered in the commercial bid.
As the audit team carefully studied the contract, it was fully prepared to respond to the various excuses of the construction party, and continued to let the construction party see the contract documents "Instructions for Filling in the Bill of Quantities" Articles 5 and 6: the comprehensive unit price and combined price of each single item in the list (including the content of the measure project) need to be filled in, which has included the construction measures required by the bidder for the implementation and completion of the contract project. Even if the bidder does not report or underreport, it is deemed to have been included in the price of other projects, and shall not be counted separately at the time of settlement; Article 7 "Once the bidder wins the bid, it will be contracted to the construction measures within the scope of the risk, and such costs will not be adjusted during the construction process and completion settlement". Seeing this, the construction party was speechless.
The audit team took advantage of the victory to pursue and strictly prevent the construction party from taking the consent to add stool tendons signed by the design institute on the "Construction Technology Contact Sheet", and took the initiative to attack: let them see the special clause 6.6 (2) of the contract: "If there is a project for bidding drawings that is not specifically indicated, but the construction content is clear in the design of the construction design drawings and can be reasonably expected for an experienced contractor, the owner will not accept the contractor's application for change during the construction process. and consider to be a factor that has been fully taken into account by an experienced contractor in the bidding".
The contractor violated this clause by applying for a change and calculating the cost of the "Construction Technical Contact Form" in which there were no stool tendons in the previous bidding drawings and submitted to the design institute to clearly set up the stool tendons during the construction process; In addition, there is a special clause of the contract, 6.6(3), which states that "after the issuance of the construction design drawings, the owner shall not make any adjustment to the unit price of the contractor's winning bid, except for projects involving projects where the construction plan must be significantly changed, and the contractor shall not request an adjustment of the unit price for any reason".
There are no design changes to the bottom plate, roof and U-shaped groove structure floor of the passage frame structure in the visa, so there are no major changes to the construction plan mentioned in this clause.
In order to do the work effectively, in addition to the strict selection of items and contract terms one by one, we also communicated with the professionals of the construction party, presented them with a full set of information about the matter, and eliminated their previous prejudices and misunderstandings: that is, they believed that the "Construction Technology Contact Form" was a design change issued by the design institute, so they had to pay for it. When I saw the "Construction Technology Contact Sheet" and the attached drawings, I realized that it was not the design institute that made the design change, but only the designer's agreement with the construction party's measure of using stool reinforcement to support the fixed surface reinforcement; When we saw that the construction party had written the words "for the convenience of construction" on the "Contact Form for Engineering Design Change Application", it was already thoroughly understood, and there was no doubt that the change fee could not be paid.
In addition, the audit team also found that there is a measure project in the second bid section, the bidding is given to use the spray anchor process for slope support, the construction party in the bidding quotation according to the requirements of this process, the quotation is about 470,000 yuan, and in the actual construction, because the geological conditions are acceptable, the slope foot can be used to drive steel sheet piles for support, and obtain the design, supervision and construction party approval, after the implementation of the on-site visa, the settlement of the cost of about 110,000 yuan, but also calculated the cost of about 470,000 yuan of spray anchor support that has not been implemented, According to the contract, the measures are lump sum, and such expenses will not be adjusted during the construction process and completion settlement, so the 110,000 yuan of double calculation should be reduced.
Since they occur before and during construction and are not physical projects, most of them often have no remaining entities to verify when the project is completed.
In this audit, the auditors started from the business information, starting from the early bidding information, and moved forward step by step, so far, the fact that the construction unit overestimated and arbitraged the national construction funds surfaced. The audit has instructed the relevant units to deal with it.
On the one hand, it is driven by the interests of construction enterprises, and on the other hand, it also exposes the loopholes in the implementation of project bidding documents and contracts, project change management and price review, which need to be paid close attention to.
4.1. Strengthen design quality supervision and improve the accuracy of construction drawing design.
Strengthen the phased and rational demonstration of design, prevent the occurrence of "white drawing construction", "design while construction" and other phenomena, improve the depth of design, reduce design errors, curb design changes, design changes are the source of high profits of the winning bidder, and put an end to those design changes that lack scientificity, rigor and rationality only for the legalization of price adjustment, and reduce the cost loss caused by unnecessary changes.
4.2. Strengthen budget management and control the quality of the preparation of bills of quantities.
Strengthen the quality control of the construction drawing budget preparation unit, the preparation of the bill of quantities in the budget stage must be clear, comprehensive and accurate description of the project content that needs to be completed by the bidder, and the bill of quantities listed in the bidding documents should cover the content of the drawings as much as possible, in line with the actual project, and also take into account the foresight, as far as possible to avoid a substantial impact on the project quotation.
4.3. Organize the standard clearance work to prevent unbalanced quotations.
Formulate scientific and reasonable bidding control prices, improve the accuracy of control prices, refine evaluation standards, and guide bidders to bid fairly and reasonably.
Before signing the contract, organize the bid clearance work, review the main materials, equipment, measure fees, daily work unit prices and sporadic construction machinery shifts, clean up unbalanced quotations, prevent bidders from using the vague description of the list to make a fuss, and prevent the settlement audit in advance.
4.4. Increase on-site management and reasonably control project change visas.
Strengthen the awareness that project management is based on bidding documents and contracts, and make scientific and rigorous agreements on the change procedures, change ranges, and change of project quantity and price adjustment methods in the contract terms to avoid settlement losses caused by unclear agreements.
Standardize the project change procedures, strictly implement the change approval process, and strictly prevent collusion and arbitrary changes between various interest units in the process of project construction.
4.5. Strengthen the supervision and management of price recognition, and pay attention to the strictness and seriousness of price recognition.
Unreasonable and unserious visa recognition is also an important reason for the winning bidder to meet high profits through design changes and engineering changes.
Whether it is the determination of the price of materials and equipment or the price of the project, it is necessary to standardize the price recognition procedure and strictly implement the approval process of price confirmation.
In the above example, the follow-up auditors calculated the fees only based on the existing visas, completely lost the independent professional analysis and judgment they should have, and failed to perform their duties, which brought great economic risks to the construction party.
Therefore, the construction unit shall supervise the relevant units to perform their duties and responsibilities in accordance with the contract in accordance with the law, and strengthen the supervision of the relevant units.
4.6. Implement the main responsibility of project management of the construction unit.
Give full play to the role of the main body of project management, supervise and coordinate survey, design, supervision, construction, quality inspection, safety and other units to perform their duties conscientiously, work together, form a joint management force, constantly improve and optimize the relevant procedures and measures of project management, timely rectify the problems existing in the process of project promotion, and ensure the smooth and efficient implementation of each construction project.
The audit institutions shall reveal and analyze the causes of the waste of government funds in the implementation of the project in the audit report, and implement them to the responsible subjects, and investigate the major losses and wastes.