The Comptroller-General's Department (CGD) believes the use of the blockchain technology in government auctions will increase transparency and create fairness for all bidders, says comptroller-general Kulaya Tantitemit.
Since April this year, the CGD, a government agency under the Finance Ministry responsible for managing and overseeing procurement processes, has implemented blockchain technology in the government auction process.
As a result, the bidders as well as the government agency that owns the bidding project, will not be able to see the bid price until the auction closes, Ms Kulaya said.
In addition, price proposal information on the blockchain will be encrypted as it is being sent to the department and later forwarded to Krungthai Bank, the bank overseeing the government procurement system.
Apart from using blockchain technology in the government auction system, the department also reduced the duration of auctions from eight hours (8am to 4pm) to just three hours (9am to 12pm), which is deemed to be an ample period of time for the private sector to place bids.
The reduced duration assures the bidder the price proposal information will not be leaked during the bidding process, although the blockchain cannot be hacked, she said.
As for the auction prospectus, the department allows all interested parties to download the relevant documents free of charge on a fair and equal basis.
In fiscal 2022, government agencies procured 5.36 million projects with a total value of 1.43 trillion baht.
Up to 5.21 million projects had winning bids which represented 1.20 trillion baht in total.
The cut-off price was 1.16 trillion baht, resulting in a budget saving of 36.5 billion baht, or 3.04% of the bidding budget.
The winning bids can be classified as having used an e-bidding method (42%), price proposal through a specific method (38.4%), selection method (17.9%), or other methods (1.50%).
The top 10 government agencies recording the highest procurement value were the Royal Irrigation Department, the Department of Highways, the Department of Rural Roads, the Provincial Electricity Authority, the Department of Public Works and Town & Country Planning, the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority, the Department of Corrections, the Royal Thai Army, the Royal Thai Police, and the Metropolitan Waterworks Authority.
For fiscal 2023, as of April government agencies procured 2.69 million projects with a total value of 889 billion baht.
However, projects that won a bid represented a total value of 430 billion baht, resulting in a budget saving of 26.5 billion baht, or 5.82% of the bidding budget.
Bidding through a specific method accounted for 45.7% of the total auction value, followed by the e-bidding method at 42%.
