Public Procurement Service to Award a Total of 13 Million KRW in Rewards for Reporting Unfair Procurement Practices

The Public Procurement Service announced on the 5th that it will pay a total of 13 million KRW in rewards to 13 individuals who reported unfair procurement practices by procurement companies.

The reward amount varies from 100,000 KRW to a maximum of 5.2 million KRW per person, depending on the number of reports and the seriousness of the reported content.

This total reward amount is the largest ever since the reward payment system for reports was introduced in October 2020.

In particular, the Public Procurement Service emphasized that starting this year, the related regulations have been revised so that rewards can also be given when new evidence is submitted among cases already disclosed in the media, and when a suspension of transactions is imposed as a result of an investigation following a report.

Any citizen who discovers unfair procurement practices can report them through the Public Procurement Service website or the ‘Unfair Procurement Reporting Center’ on the Korea ON-line E-Procurement System (KONEPS) website.

Rewards are paid when the investigated company receives disciplinary actions such as restrictions on bidding participation (sanctions on dishonest businesses), imposition of fines, suspension of transactions, or recovery of unfair profits as a result of the investigation.

Moon Kyung-rye, Director of the Fair Procurement Bureau at the Public Procurement Service, said, “We express our gratitude to the reporters who courageously reported unfair procurement practices,” and added, “The Public Procurement Service will continue to activate the reporting system to protect reporters and thoroughly eradicate unfair procurement practices.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.