This article does not make value judgments, but only presents facts and rational deductions.

一

Government procurement, this concept sounds far away from ordinary people, but in fact, it happens every day—the buses you take, the teaching equipment in your children’s schools, the CT machines in hospitals, and even the fitness trails you run in the morning, are likely backed by a government procurement contract.

The original intention of the government procurement system is not complicated: when using fiscal funds to buy things, it cannot be “whoever wants to buy it can buy it”, there must be a set of rules to prevent wasting money and prevent the transfer of interests.

This system can be traced back to the late 1990s. At that time, various places were “running around for funds” and “project by project” emerged endlessly. For the same equipment, Bureau A bought it for 500,000 yuan, and Bureau B bought it for 800,000 yuan. Where did the difference go? No one could say clearly. In 2002, the “Government Procurement Law” was promulgated, and in 2012, the “Implementation Regulations of the Government Procurement Law” were issued. Since then, various places have continuously increased their efforts and refined them layer by layer, finally forming the process we see today.

The original intention is good, but the problem arises: when the process is complex enough, is it “procurement” or “performing procurement”?

二

Let me break it down, how many steps does an ordinary government procurement project have to go through?

A certain department shows that a complete government procurement project needs to go through at least 18 main links:

Intention announcement (at least 30 days in advance)
Inquiry letter (no less than 3 working days, at least 3 quotations)
Bid price calculation report (signed by at least 3 people)
Agency agreement
Preparation of implementation plan
Research on the implementation plan (party group meeting at the bureau level or above for projects over 1 million yuan)
Procurement plan submission (external network system)
Filling out the procurement plan (internal network system, requires uploading several attachments)
Tender document demonstration (projects over 1 million yuan require organizing experts and a procurement demand report)
Tender document review (external network system)
Tender document posting and public announcement
Bidding
Approval and release of the winning bid announcement (within 1 working day)
Opening and evaluation report (uploaded within 2 working days)
Signing the contract (within 30 days, requires two reviews at the same time)
Approval and release of the contract announcement (within 2 working days)
Contract filing (within 7 working days)
Performance acceptance and filing (within 2 working days after acceptance is qualified)

The above are only the “main links”, and each link has sub-links. For example, the step of “filling out the procurement plan” requires uploading procurement needs, budget text, procurement implementation plan, agency agreement, implementation plan, and other attachments; if it is an imported product, it also requires going through “unified demonstration” and providing product lists, application scenarios, necessity explanations, etc.

Just to complete these processes, an ordinary project takes at least 2-3 months, and complex projects start from half a year, or even a year.

A grassroots procurement officer once privately calculated a bill: for a project with a budget of 5 million yuan, from the intention announcement to the final acceptance and payment, his team filled out 47 forms, stamped 23 seals, held 9 meetings, and uploaded more than 200 pages of attachments. And the time actually spent on “understanding product performance, comparing supplier plans, and negotiating prices” accounts for less than 20% of the total workload.

Is this buying goods or writing a thesis?

三

So, does this complex process ultimately achieve its original intention?

Let’s look at it from three dimensions.

First, has the cost been reduced?

Theoretically, open bidding and multi-party comparison can lower prices. But in reality, due to the cumbersome and lengthy process, many suppliers will include the “accompanying cost” in their quotations—they need a dedicated bidding team, professional bid document preparers, and even need to spend money to hire consulting companies to study the evaluation rules. These costs will eventually be passed on to the price.

More importantly, there is a paradox in the way the bid price is determined: projects under 1 million yuan only need to inquire with 3 market prices, but who are the objects of inquiry? Projects over 1 million yuan need to be entrusted to a third-party cost consulting agency, but how does the third-party agency quote? It is often “deduced” based on historical data. A bid price without real market competition may itself be an inflated price.

Second, is there a guarantee for returns?

The procurement contract naturally specifies the acceptance standards and breach of contract liabilities. But in actual operation, from the failure of a project to pass acceptance to the initiation of claims, returns, and re-bidding, the complexity of the process is enough to make most purchasers choose “coordinated solutions”—that is, turning a blind eye.

A certain unit purchased a batch of teaching equipment, and it was found that some parameters did not meet the standards during acceptance. According to the contract, it should be returned, but if it is returned, it means: going through 18 steps again, waiting for another 2-3 months, and teaching cannot be carried out normally during this period. In the end, the two parties “friendly negotiated”, and the supplier made up a batch of consumables.

The more complex the process, the higher the cost of correction, and the lower the supplier’s cost of breach of contract.

Third, do insiders still exist?
The answer to this question may disappoint many people, and it only represents a personal and shallow view: the more complex the process, the greater the operating space for insiders.

Why? Because a complex process means “information asymmetry” and “the right to interpret the rules”. An ordinary supplier may not even understand the bid documents, while “old players” know the tricks of each link—how to set parameters, how to allocate points, and when the window period for questioning and complaints is. This information itself is a moat.

The internal system of a certain unit clearly lists “the following situations are not allowed”: transferring the investigation of procurement needs to potential suppliers, technical parameters pointing to specific brands, and tailor-made tender documents… The existence of these clauses precisely shows that these problems are widespread.

四

Some people say, then don’t do government procurement at all, just buy from JD.com or Douyin, isn’t it faster?

This idea sounds very beautiful, but under the current institutional framework, it is almost impossible, for three reasons:

First, compliance risk. The use of fiscal funds must comply with the “Budget Law” and the “Government Procurement Law”. If the legal process is skipped, the audit will directly determine it as “illegal procurement”. At the lightest, it will be criticized, and at the heaviest, it will be transferred to the discipline inspection and supervision department. No head of any unit dares to take this risk.

Second, audit risk. The finance, audit, and inspection departments have regular supervision of government procurement. Even if what you buy is of good quality and low price, as long as the process is not compliant, it is a problem. On the contrary, if the process is completed, it is “acceptable” to buy it expensively. This is a typical case of “procedural justice overriding substantive justice”.

Third, responsibility risk. The prices of goods on JD.com or Douyin platforms fluctuate greatly, suppliers change quickly, and after-sales standards are inconsistent. If the purchaser places an order on their own, who is responsible if something goes wrong? Going through the government procurement process, although slow, but every link has a signature, a record, and an accountability object—this is the “exemption logic” within the system.

Therefore, it is not that the purchaser does not want to use e-commerce, but that the current system puts “compliance” before “efficiency” and “cost-effectiveness”. This is not the choice of an individual, but the inevitable result of a whole set of incentive mechanisms.

五

So, is there a way that is both fast and compliant?

Yes, but it requires adjustments at the institutional level, rather than the “inspiration” of a single purchaser.

First, distinguish between “engineering projects” and “standard products”. For standardized goods such as computers, printers, and office furniture, go through “electronic marketplaces” or “framework agreement” procurement, one bidding and multiple orders, simplifying the 18 steps into 3 steps. Currently, some regions are piloting the “government procurement cloud platform”, but the promotion and coverage are not enough.

Second, introduce a third-party price comparison platform. Introduce real-time price data from platforms such as JD.com and Tmall within the compliance framework as a reference for bid prices to avoid “making cars behind closed doors”.

Third, establish a “tolerance and exemption” list. For small-value, standardized procurement projects, if the purchaser adopts a more efficient procurement method and the price is fair, it should be clearly not held accountable. Otherwise, everyone will only choose the “safest but slowest” path.

六

Back to the title: Has government procurement deviated from its original intention?

My answer is: it has not deviated, but the process has been alienated.

The original intention is “spend the right money, buy good goods, and prevent corruption”. The current result is “just complete the process, whether the goods are good or not is another matter”. This is not the fault of one person, but a system that has chosen the former between “avoiding risks” and “improving efficiency”.

If government procurement is compared to a sieve, the current sieve holes are too small, so small that it not only sifts out the sand, but also sifts out most of the gold in the sand.

And those that really need to be sifted out—opaque transactions, unreasonable prices, and unqualified products—have instead gained a space for survival because of the complexity of the process.

This is not a manifesto, nor is it a paean. It is just a rational observer who has said a word that should be said about this system that has been running for more than twenty years.