Concerns have been raised regarding repeated sole-source contracts awarded to specific companies in procurement contracts related to the Election Commission, as well as delays in registering companies subject to sanctions, which allowed them to evade penalties.
During a National Assembly audit on October 15, the Finance and Economy Planning Committee examined the National Data Agency, the Korea Customs Service, and the Public Procurement Service, questioning whether the procurement management and sanction systems were functioning properly.
Park Soo-young, a lawmaker from the People Power Party, pointed out that in contracts for the supply of ballot inspection and counting machines used by the Election Commission, certain companies have been alternating sole-source contracts based on the type of election. According to Park, out of 11 related contracts over the past decade, there was only one instance of competition between two companies during the 2020 parliamentary proportional representation election. He noted that Plus Sangsa supplied machines for the presidential and association head elections, while Evenking Tech provided them for local and district elections.
While Park indicated that the representatives of the two companies are not the same, he raised concerns about the possibility of collusion exploiting loopholes in the bidding system. He also cited examples from contracts for the election information system, where B2N participated alone from 2020 to 2023, and CNKP took over from 2024, both securing sole-source contracts. Park emphasized that 88.5% of the contracts requested by the Election Commission from the Public Procurement Service are sole-source contracts, calling for a comprehensive investigation into the contracts.
In response, the head of the Public Procurement Service, Baek, acknowledged that there appears to be a strong suspicion of unfair practices related to the ballot counting machine contracts. He also noted that the election information system contracts seem to have similar issues and pledged to improve the bidding system and investigate unfair practices.
Additionally, the issue of delays in registering disqualified vendors, which undermined the effectiveness of bidding restrictions, was also highlighted. Moon Jin-seok, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party, revealed that the registration of companies designated as disqualified vendors in the country’s procurement system was delayed, resulting in improper application of bidding restrictions.
According to Moon, there were 17 instances where registration was delayed by more than a day from the start of sanctions, with 10 of those cases experiencing delays of over 10 days, and one case delayed by as much as 458 days. There were also instances where registration occurred only after the bidding restriction period had ended, allowing the sanctioned companies to participate in bids without any limitations. Notably, one company attempted to bid 89 times during the delay period.
Baek stated, “We have improved the system to prevent situations where bidding restrictions are not applied due to registration delays,” and added that measures will be taken in consultation with the relevant agencies regarding the company that attempted to bid 89 times.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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