Public Procurement Service Offers Up to 20 Million Won Reward for Reporting Unfair Procurement Practices

The Public Procurement Service (PPS) will raise the maximum reward amount for reporting unfair procurement practices to up to 20 million KRW.

The PPS announced that it has revised the "Regulations on Reward Payments for Reporting Unfair Procurement Practices," which will take effect from the 1st of this month.

The reward for reporting is paid by combining a fixed reward of 500,000 to 1,000,000 KRW with a reward based on the amount of recovered illicit gains, after investigating the reported unfair procurement practice and imposing sanctions such as restrictions on bidding qualifications, fines, or suspension of transactions.

According to the revised regulations, the maximum reward per report will increase from the previous 10 million KRW to 20 million KRW.

Additionally, if the investigation confirms illicit gains resulting from unfair practices, the reward rate will be raised from the previous 0.02% to a range of 0.2% to 2.0%.

The reward rate refers to the payment based on the amount decided for recovery by the national treasury (Illicit gains recovered × reward rate according to the recovery amount bracket).

For example, if the amount of illicit gains recovered is 1 billion KRW, previously the reporter would receive 3.4 million KRW, but under the same criteria starting this month, the reward can be 8.5 million KRW.

The types of unfair procurement practices subject to reporting include six categories: ▲submission of forged or altered documents related to bidding or contracts ▲delivery of products not directly produced (manufactured) ▲false indication of origin on delivered products ▲delivery of products that do not meet contract specifications ▲violation of preferential pricing conditions ▲false or fraudulent designation of excellent procurement items.

Any citizen who discovers such acts can report them through the PPS website or the "Unfair Procurement Reporting Center" on the Nara Marketplace.

Lim Gi-geun, Administrator of the PPS, stated, "We ask for the public’s interest and courageous reports to eradicate unfair procurement practices that undermine fairness and common sense," adding, "We hope that the increase in reporting rewards will lead to strengthened monitoring of unfair practices throughout the public procurement process."

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