CP Advice
Case Studies
Case 1: Prequalification
Assisted by its consultant, an owners’ corporation (OC) conducted a prequalification exercise to shortlist contractors for invitation to tender for its building maintenance project. To ensure that only contractors from his syndicate would be invited to tender, the consultant’s director offered tens of thousand dollars to the OC Chairman as an inducement for the latter’s assistance to persuade the OC to, among other things, adopt a set of overly demanding qualifying requirements, some of which irrelevant to or totally unnecessary for the project, e.g. possessing experience in new building construction works. As a result, other suitable contractors not belonging to the syndicate were screened out, and those in the syndicate rigged the tender and offered inflated bids. See More
Case 2: Works Supervision
Supervision of works by the project consultant’s site supervisory team for a building maintenance project was lax – the consultant only deployed an inexperienced inspector to conduct infrequent site visits, and the inspector, sweetened by the contractor’s site manager with frequent hospitalities (including passages to and hotel accommodations in Macau), turned a blind eye to the substandard works and inferior materials. The Management Committee (MC) relied entirely on the consultant’s flimsy reports with no details or proof/assurance of works done. Moreover, property owners were not provided with adequate information about the project, such as the works to be done and materials to be used. See More
