Related firms' participation does not prevent others from submitting bids: MOF

Singapore

RESPONDING to a research paper's finding that identical bids from related firms were associated with higher winning prices in government tenders, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) noted that participation of related firms does not prevent others from submitting bids, adding that any suspected collusion will be investigated.

Analysing data from government procurement portal GeBiz between Sept 21, 2016 and April 2, 2018, researchers Kentaro Asai from the Australian National University and Ben Charoenwong from the National University of Singapore found that 9.8 per cent of auctions had at least one instance of identical bids, and that identical bids were correlated with ownership connections.