The committee is tasked to review and evaluate bid proposals for small scale construction projects for the national government, including reporting on evaluations and recommendations on bid proposals to contracting officer through the secretary of DTC&I.
“I would like to create a committee for transparency and to avoid misconception of the public on how the national government selects and awards public funded projects,” Mori said.
According to Itimai, a number of projects are overseen by his department. All of these projects vary in scope and funding amount from as low as $35,000 to nearly $500,000. These are projects apart from Compact controlled infrastructure projects.
Current bid proposal review and recommendation process is done by a panel of three to five members from within the Department of TC&I who primarily report to the secretary. The selected proposal is then given over to the Department of Justice for legal review and the Department of Finance and Administration for certification of funding. When funds are certified and legal sufficiency of the proposal is ascertained, then a notification of award is rendered to the bidder.
The creation of the committee will eliminate the “in-house” review panel and involve members from the named departments in the evaluation process to bolster transparency and other considerations for equal opportunity to potential bidders.
