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1. Housing Department Proposes New Tender Evaluation Mechanism

1. Housing Department Proposes New Tender Evaluation Mechanism
HKHA Press Release, 22 April 2004

The Housing Department(HD)proposes to adopt a new tender assessment mechanism for service contracts of all types aiming at screening out bids with unreasonably low wages and low man-power input.

The new mechanism is proposed in response to criticisms about low wages for contract cleansing workers at public housing estates.

The Deputy Director for Housing (Estate Management), Mr Lau Kai-hung, explained that the low wages might be attributed to the fact that most workers were residents in the public housing estates and their working hours were very flexible.

"As clearing rubbish bins is normally performed in the evening and sweeping of floors in the morning, the workers enjoy free time in between the hours and can have meals at home. They may not be considered as full time workers," Mr Lau said.

After consulting all relevant parties, HD is considering introducing a new marking scheme for the assessment of the service tenders under which higher merit points will be given to contractors offering higher wages to workers.

Elaborating on the details, Mr Lau said that the effective weighting allocating to committed wages and related items would be increased from the existing four to six per cent to no less than 12.5%.

"This is in line with current ratio adopted by some other Government departments and will raise the wages level close to the average wage level of respective trades published by the Census and Statistics Department," Mr Lau said.

The new mechanism will also require tenderers to make a commitment on input resources as measured by the number of man-hour allocated to the cleansing service being tendered.

"Low committed input will attract low score to discourage contractors from using too thin resources for the service," Mr Lau said.

The proposals will be submitted to the Housing Authority's Tender Committee for consideration at the end of this month and if endorsed, will be introduced in early May.

"All existing contracts will be put to tender within 12 months using the new tender evaluation mechanism.

"The department is confident that through the introduction of the new measure, workers working in public housing estates will have their wages close to the average wage level of their respective trades," Mr Lau added.