"Although the main targets of investigation were professional bid-rigging and collusion gangs, the cases reflect deep-seated problems in the bidding field of water conservancy projects. The Party Leadership Group of the Department of Water Resources must treat rectification as an important part of clean governance and carry it out solidly." Recently, the Hunan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision organized an on-site handover meeting at the Provincial Department of Water Resources on 'promoting reform through cases' regarding a series of cases involving professional gangs colluding in bidding (referred to as the 8·15 series of cases), urging the water resources system to take the cases as a warning, draw inferences from one instance, deepen the special rectification of prominent issues in bidding and tendering, and promote the healthy and orderly development of the bidding market.

Since 2016, 11 criminal gangs led by Fan Mouhua and others have, by controlling the qualifications of multiple companies, colluding with agency companies, and bribing bid evaluation experts, carried out large-scale bid-rigging and collusion activities in water conservancy construction projects for clients and companies under their own control, obtaining huge illegal profits and seriously affecting the political ecology and development environment of the relevant localities. Focusing on the deep-seated problems and regulatory loopholes exposed by the series of cases, the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision has, through face-to-face handover, pressed functional departments to fulfill their responsibilities for promoting reform through cases.

Since the beginning of this year, Hunan has further deepened and expanded the results of the special rectification of prominent issues in bidding and tendering for engineering construction projects, actively used technological means to support precise supervision, thoroughly investigated the corruption behind various illegal and criminal problems, pressed responsibilities to solve regulatory difficulties, continuously formed a strong deterrent against chaos in the bidding field of engineering construction across the province, and promoted the improvement of industry-wide governance.

Big data analysis opens the 'black box,' and clues on three aspects including public officials' irregular participation in bidding are handed over
"We participated in bid-rigging activities for relevant water conservancy projects in Hengnan County, and we are here today to surrender." Shortly after the 8·15 series of cases occurred, the main persons in charge of two construction companies in Hengyang City went to the Hengnan County Public Security Bureau to voluntarily confess their problems and actively returned illicit money.
"These two companies indirectly participated in bid-rigging, which is difficult to discover through ordinary supervision and inspection and in the past was very likely to slip through the net. Now big data analysis has become a sharp tool for opening the 'black box.'" said the relevant person in charge of the Party Conduct and Government Conduct Supervision Office of the Hengyang Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision. Big data analysis screened out problem clues related to the 8·15 series of cases, and the public security department further judged and deepened the investigation through a practical combat platform, eliminating in one stroke one professional bid-rigging company that had entrenched itself in Hengyang City for many years, thoroughly investigating 18 behind-the-scenes 'financial backers,' and investigating and punishing 20 accompanying bidding companies.
As of the end of September this year, the Office of the Special Rectification Work for Prominent Issues in Bidding and Tendering of Engineering Construction Projects in Hunan Province organized the Provincial Audit Department, the Provincial Public Security Department, the Provincial Public Resource Trading Center and other units to conduct in-depth comparative analysis of data on bidders, tenderers, bidding agencies, expert judges and others for more than 37,000 bidding project sections in the province over the past four years, and sorted and summarized the 3,389 clues of violations of laws and regulations discovered into 16 major categories, including 'professional accompanying bidders,' 'bid kings,' collusive bidding, and judges' irregular participation in bid evaluation. By clarifying the handling region, handling department and handling method for each clue, and implementing face-to-face handover, half-month scheduling and full coverage of on-site supervision, it has both accurately discovered problems and effectively promoted their resolution.
"At present, we are further expanding the scope and content of big data analysis, extending from during the bidding to after the bidding, and thoroughly investigating problems such as lending and affiliation of qualifications and illegal subcontracting behind the irregular changes of key post personnel." said the relevant person in charge of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision. The province has handed over clues on three aspects, including public officials' irregular participation in bidding.

In recent years, most provincial-level officials transferred to judicial organs have been involved in the engineering construction field; insisting on investigating both bribery and bribe-giving and cutting the chain of 'hunting'
"Pan Quansheng, a staff member of Chenzhou City Urban Construction Comprehensive Development Industrial General Company, was sentenced to five years in prison and fined 100,000 yuan for the crime of offering bribes; and was sentenced to six months in prison and fined 50,000 yuan for the crime of colluding in bidding..." On October 26, the Hunan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision once again reported 8 typical cases of bribery, in which the bribery and profit-seeking matters mainly occurred in key links of the engineering construction field such as project contracting, project bidding, project supervision, project payment, land use approval, and land compensation.
"Judging from major and important cases investigated in recent years, almost all involve the field of engineering construction bidding. Among the provincial-level officials transferred to judicial organs, many have accepted bribes in engineering construction projects and sought improper benefits for specific targets. The engineering construction field has become the main battlefield of hunting and counter-hunting." the relevant person in charge of the Hunan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision told reporters.
On the one hand, Hunan's discipline inspection and supervision organs have tightly grasped punishment without relaxation. Since the beginning of this year, they have successively investigated and dealt with Wang Wuliang, former Party Secretary and Chairman of Hunan Rail Transit Holding Group, Gu Feng, former Vice Mayor of Zhuzhou Municipal People's Government, Zhou Lifu, former Secretary of the Jiangyong County Party Committee, and many other provincial-level leading officials. On the other hand, they have insisted on investigating both bribery and bribe-giving, explored and implemented a 'blacklist' system for bribe-givers, included 6 companies and 106 individuals with illegal and criminal acts such as bribery and collusive bidding in the list of dishonest conduct and publicly exposed them, and imposed joint disciplinary measures on them in accordance with the law, such as restricting their participation in bidding for engineering construction projects and government procurement activities, so that dishonest entities are 'restricted everywhere once dishonest in one place.'
At the same time, Hunan conducted a major review of problem clues since September 2018 concerning relevant public officials who failed to implement the registration and reporting system and cooperated with leading officials in intervening in engineering projects, strictly investigated acts of accepting requests from leading officials and irregularly handling matters for them, and imposed Party discipline and government sanctions and organizational handling on 38 people, cutting off the 'black hands' reaching into engineering construction projects from all links and compressing the space for leading officials to exercise power arbitrarily.

Follow-up supervision presses responsibilities, promotes normalized and long-term governance, and the full-process electronic rate of bidding for engineering construction projects reaches 98%
"From now on, I will definitely take the lead in strictly observing discipline, laws and rules, and educate and manage the Party members and cadres in this system well." On August 19, the person in charge of the Linxiang City Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau said when receiving a reminder talk from the Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision. Previously, the city's Wuli public rental housing and civil air defense emergency command center construction projects set excessively high thresholds in violation of bidding-related regulations, and the director of the Municipal Bidding Office, as the directly responsible person, received a government sanction.
"As the bidding supervision department, the bidding office failed to discover that the bidding agency applied erroneous qualification conditions, resulting in failure to promptly correct the setting of illegal and irregular clauses in the bidding documents and causing adverse effects." the relevant person in charge of the Linxiang Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision told reporters. The Municipal Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau took this as a warning and adjusted the partial verification and filing system for bidding documents before rectification to a full verification system for bidding documents of all bidding projects in the city, strictly checked the bidding documents issued by agency companies, and prevented similar situations from occurring.
Supervision in the bidding field of engineering construction projects involves multiple functional departments, and pressing responsibilities to promote normalized and long-term governance is key. Through warning education, special inspections, 'office-group-locality' joint inspections and daily supervision, Hunan Province has urged functional departments such as housing and urban-rural development, development and reform, and public resource trading centers to earnestly fulfill their responsibilities, revised and improved a number of rules and regulations such as the credit evaluation measures for construction and supervision bidding, issued guiding opinions to further clarify the subjects and responsibilities of bidding supervision, promoted the full-process electronicization of public resource trading, and this year the province completed 285 remote异地 bid evaluations for engineering construction project bidding, five times that of the same period last year, with a full-process electronic rate of 98%.