The Senate unanimously approved yesterday in second reading a bill that will prohibit the Government from slicing up public works projects into small chunks in order to avoid putting them up to open bidding. Under the bill proposed by Senator Milton Ray Guevara (PRD-Saman?), any project whose total value is over RD$3 million must be put up for open public bidding. Public works valued between RD$2-3 million would be decided by a drawing organized by the College of Engineers, Architects and Surveyors. The bill now passes to the Chamber of Deputies for final approval before being sent to the President for signature. The bill is intended to stop the all-too-common practice of chopping large public works projects into small contracts in order to avoid open bidding, and thereby award projects to favored contractors.
