Highest and lowest bids might be excluded in tenders for highways

The highest and lowest price bids might be automatically excluded from highway construction tenders, Transport and Construction Minister Árpád Érsek (Most-Hid) said at the Meeting of Slovak Construction Leaders in Bratislava. "This is my vision, one of the alternatives that might at least partly prevent discord in public procurements," said the minister, adding that it works like this in some other countries and experts are talking about this option, too. However, the question is what should be done if only three applicants enrol in a tender. Only one bid would then remain if the highest and the lowest price bids were excluded. "In my opinion, we need to have at least five or six entities enrolled in order to do this," added Érsek. National Highway Company (NDS) chief Ján Ďurišin, who also attended the meeting, said that the company is preparing, in cooperation with the Public Procurement Office, the Transport Ministry and professionals, draft tender dossiers that will include other criteria in addition to the price. "I mean criteria concerning the environment, experience and the quality of key experts. We want to make use of the experiences of countries like the Netherlands or Denmark in this," said Ďurišin.