Since 2012, the former Ministry of Health and the All-China Women's Federation have cooperated to use special subsidies from the central government to implement the "Child Nutrition Improvement Project in Poverty-stricken Areas" and distribute free nutrition packages to families with infants and young children.
During the recent bidding for this project in Hunan Province, the winning company’s quotation was lower than the theoretical cost price. After accounting, the actual price of the nutrition package was only 0.07 yuan/pack, which was lower than other companies and project team experts calculated The lowest cost is far lower than the national budget standard of 1 yuan per package. In addition, Hunan Province’s nutrition package bidding also experienced delays, and one of the direct impacts of low-price bids and project delays was a large surplus of funds.
The winning bid price after deducting costs is only 0.07 yuan
According to the reporter’s understanding, the core of the “Children’s Nutrition Improvement Project in Poverty-stricken Areas” is the nutrition package. The project's nutritional packets are 12 grams each and come in a box of 30 packets. The nutritional packets are used as complementary food and nutritional supplements and are distributed free of charge to infants and young children aged 6-24 months, one packet per day.
The procurement process is: national financial funds are distributed to each province, and the Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission, as the purchaser, entrusts a bidding company or a government procurement center to conduct a nutrition package bidding. The winning company provides the product and is responsible for distribution and personnel training. , project publicity and other supporting services. The procurement process is organized and supervised by the provincial finance department.
In December 2016, the results of the nutrition package bidding in Hunan Province were announced. According to the "Competitive Negotiation Transaction Announcement" (hereinafter referred to as the "Announcement"), the nutrition packages for the three bidding sections of this bidding, *** Six companies participated, and the winning bidders were Wuhan Huakangchen Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huakangchen"), Ferguson (Wuhan) Biotechnology Co., Ltd., and Ganzhou Quanbiao Biotechnology Co., Ltd. Among them, Huakangchen won the bid for 1.4216 million boxes, totaling 42.648 million packages.
Based on calculations based on the "Announcement", our reporter found that the winning bid prices of the three companies were 0.35 yuan/pack, 0.49 yuan/pack and 0.529 yuan/pack respectively. Among them, Huakangchen's winning price was significantly lower than the others. Two families.
The Hunan Province Nutrition Pack Procurement Project Competitive Negotiation Invitation Announcement stipulates that in addition to providing the specified number of nutrition packs, the winning bidder must also provide supporting promotional materials, personnel training, project publicity, nutrition pack distribution, etc. 9 ancillary services. The above-mentioned negotiation invitation announcement clarified various cost standards. Based on this calculation, the cost that Huakangchen has to bear is 8,566,300 yuan, and the cost amortized to each nutritional package is 0.2 yuan.
A staff member of a nutrition pack manufacturer who participated in this bidding period estimated to a reporter from China Times (public account: chinatimes) that in addition to the above fees, Huakangchen also needs to pay a bid-winning service fee of 441,406.8 yuan, which is divided into The cost of a package is 0.01 yuan; the cost of supporting materials, distribution costs (factory to township), value-added tax, etc. are shared to at least 0.07 yuan per package.
Therefore, after Huakangchen won the bid at a price of 0.35 yuan/pack, it still had to bear the cost of 0.28 yuan per pack, leaving only 0.07 yuan/pack for the production of nutritional packs.
The staff of the above-mentioned manufacturer told the "China Times (public account: chinatimes)" reporter that the project requires that the soy protein in the nutrition package must all come from Class I instant soybean flour, calculated based on the use of all Class I instant soybean flour. , it is necessary to use no less than 11.4g to produce a 12g/packet of nutrition packs. The current market price is around 15,400 yuan/ton, and the cost of instant soybean powder required for a 12g nutrition pack should be no less than 0.17 yuan/pack. If the project contract is executed in accordance with regulations, Huakangchen will suffer a loss of at least 10 million yuan.
Huo Junsheng, a researcher at the Institute of Nutrition and Health of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the reporter of China Times (public account: chinatimes) that according to their rough calculations, without considering the operating costs of the company, it would be enough to produce enough The direct cost of a standard nutrition package product, that is, the cost of raw materials, packaging materials, and inspection is about 0.4 yuan/pack. If the costs of personnel, transportation, supporting services, and business operations are added, the actual cost will be much higher. to direct costs. But he also emphasized that he did not rule out the possibility that some companies could achieve lower costs.
The winning company said it "loses money to do charity"
So, how does Huakangchen make a profit?
A bidding staff member of the Hunan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission recalled to a reporter from China Times (public account: chinatimes) that some bid evaluation experts had raised questions during the bidding process regarding Huakangchen’s low quotation. . The answer given by Huakangchen was that they were willing to do the nutrition package project as a charity project. Because they were not doing it for profit, the price they gave was much lower than that of other manufacturers.
The reporter of "China Times (public account: chinatimes)" tried to contact Liu Zhiwei, chairman and general manager of Huakangchen, but as of press time, the call was always refused, and the reporter's text message was not responded to.
The chief evaluator responsible for evaluating the bids for this tender is Du Qiyun, chief physician of Hunan Maternal and Child Health Hospital. He also refused to respond to possible problems in this bid evaluation.
According to the National Enterprise Credit Information Disclosure System, Huakangchen *** has two natural person shareholders, Liu Zhiwei and Gao Yanhui, of which Liu Zhiwei subscribed 7.674 million yuan and Gao Yanhui subscribed 2.558 million yuan; there is also an enterprise Among the three natural person shareholders of the legal person Qingdingmu (Wuhan) Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Qingdingmu"), there are also Liu Zhiwei and Gao Yanhui. In addition, Liu Zhiwei is also the chief scientist and director of the research institute of Qingdingmu.
"China Times (public account: chinatimes)" reporter investigated and found that Liu Zhiwei studied for a postdoctoral degree at the Institute of Nutrition of the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2003 to 2008. This information was obtained by a staff member of the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. confirmation. The official website of Qingdingmu stated in his introduction that "from 2005 to 2010, he worked with the expert group of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention on the research and demonstration of nutrition improvement projects for infants and young children."
An industry insider told a reporter from China Times (public account: chinatimes) that Huakangchen won the bid for the first time in the Hunan Province bidding in December last year, and offered it at a low price of 0.35 yuan/pack. The price attracted attention in one fell swoop. At the same time, unlike other nutrition pack manufacturers that actively participate in bidding for various batches of nutrition packs in various places, Huakangchen only participated in the Hunan Province bidding in December last year and had no experience winning bids in other regions before that.
The bidding has been delayed for nearly two years, and the remaining funds are serious
In addition to winning the bid at a low price, Hunan Province’s nutrition package bidding also encountered delays.
According to the information queried on the Hunan Provincial Government Procurement Network, the Hunan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission issued a competitive negotiation invitation announcement for the 2014 nutrition package procurement project on December 10, 2015, and in November 2016 On the 30th, an invitation announcement for competitive negotiations on the 2015 nutritional package procurement project was released. According to the project plan jointly issued by the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the All-China Women's Federation, bidding and procurement should be completed within 2-3 months after the funding is released.
According to multiple people familiar with the matter, a reporter from China Times (public account: chinatimes) revealed that annual project bidding in various places is usually completed in the first half of the year, and manufacturers should start shipping soon after completion to meet the needs of that year. Infant and toddler needs within the project plan.
The tendering for projects in 2014 and 2015 should have been completed in the first half of that year, but Hunan Province was delayed for nearly 2 years, and the two tenderings conducted by Hunan Province in 2014 and 2015 were separated by as long as 20 years. months, which is the longest among the project provinces.
Since the maximum time for infants and young children in the project to receive nutritional packages is one and a half years between the ages of 6 months and 24 months, the consequences of delayed bidding may be that the children who should be included in the project Infants and young children of appropriate age have already exceeded the specified age by the time nutrition packages begin to be distributed. According to regulations, nutrition packages will no longer be distributed to children who are over 1 month old.
A person familiar with the matter told a reporter from China Times (public account: chinatimes) that there is a method of operation after winning a low-price bid, that is, the winning bidder signs a contract with the purchaser, but does not deliver the goods and delays the delivery. New projects start next year. In this way, if the company fails to execute the contract, it will not incur actual losses due to winning the bid at a low price; nor will the deposit be confiscated, thus avoiding losses.
One of the direct impacts of winning bids at low prices and project delays is the problem of remaining funds. A domestic professional institution has previously conducted research on the project. According to the third-party project evaluation report formed after the research, 10 of the 21 project provinces had surplus funds in 2015, with Hunan having the largest remaining funds, reaching 25.41 million yuan. . That year, the central government allocated a total of 56.94 million yuan in project funds to Hunan Province, and the proportion of remaining funds reached 44.6.
In contrast to the remaining funds, the project coverage rate (the number of project counties as a proportion of the number of poor counties) in 19 of the 21 provinces is less than two-thirds. Among them, the Hunan Province project Coverage is 63.
Yuanling County, Huaihua City, Hunan Province is one of the project counties. A village doctor from the clinic of Huangyangping Neighborhood Committee, Mingxikou Town, told the reporter of China Times (public account: chinatimes) that the village is currently distributing This batch of nutrition packs were received starting from May last year and were produced by Ganzhou Quanbiao Biotechnology Co., Ltd. The company was the winning bidder for the 2014 project, and its contract performance date was March 2016.
For the project delay, the above-mentioned bidding staff gave two reasons. First, the funds from the central government are released late. The project funds for that year often do not arrive until September, October or even at the end of the year. Bidding cannot be held until the funds are received. The other point is that the nutrition package project requires a long process of population statistics, application and bidding. , it will take a while. In addition, he pointed out that new bidding often does not start until the distribution of nutrition packages in the previous cycle is basically completed.
This statement has been confirmed by many village doctors. The above-mentioned village doctor said that many local parents take their children to work outside the village, and many children are no longer in the village. In addition, most children in the village do not like to eat nutritional packets, so there is a backlog of nutritional packets in the local area and they cannot be distributed.
Village doctors at the clinic of Laoyaxi Neighborhood Committee in Yuanling Town only started to receive this batch of nutrition packs in January this year, and had been distributing products from the previous batch of winning bidders. However, the nutritional packages produced by Huakangchen, which won the bid at the end of last year, have not been distributed to any village.
As for the large amount of remaining project funds, the aforementioned bidding staff believe that this is not a problem, but the result of the work of the Hunan Health and Family Planning Commission. Through a series of tenders, Hunan Province’s nutritional packages can basically be guaranteed (supply) until the end of 2018. On this basis, there is a balance of funds, and procurement can continue to ensure (supply) until 2019.
Some industry experts told the China Times (public account: chinatimes) reporter that according to regulations, project funds must be earmarked for specific purposes, and even expansion of bidding and procurement needs to be reported and approved.
As to why the remaining funds were not used to expand project coverage to counties, the bidding staff explained that the Hunan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission had reported it to the competent authorities, but had not received a reply.
Low-price bidding cannot guarantee the quality of nutrition packs, and some manufacturers have detected genetically modified soy flour
Wuhan Huakangchen Biotechnology Co., Ltd. is not the only low-price winning manufacturer in recent years. A staff member of a nutrition pack manufacturer recalled to reporters that at the beginning of the project in 2012, although the quotations of each manufacturer were different, they were still within a reasonable range; as the project progressed, especially since 2016, individual manufacturers increased their quotations in order to win the bid. Far below cost price.
According to the manufacturer's statistics, in the 2016 project bidding, the winning bidders in Sichuan, Ningxia, Gansu, Tibet, Hunan and other provinces were all the lowest bidders. Low-price competition has led to concerns among industry experts about the quality of nutrition packs.
Some manufacturers use genetically modified soybean powder in violation of regulations
The reporter’s investigation found that nutrition packages distributed in some areas were even suspected of using genetically modified soybean powder in violation of regulations. In January this year, the project management unit commissioned an analysis and testing center in Beijing to conduct sampling testing of nutrition packs. Among them, the test results of nutrition pack samples from Liaoning Militianjia Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Mitianjia") showed LECTIN genes and NOS genes. and EPSPS gene positive, indicating that it contains genetically modified components.
A staff member of a soybean flour supply factory told a reporter from China Times (public account: chinatimes) that the price of genetically modified soybeans is about 2,000 yuan/ton cheaper than non-genetically modified soybeans, with an output of 1.5 tons of soybeans. Calculating 1 ton of soy flour, the cost of genetically modified soy flour is 3,000 yuan lower.
The procurement requirements issued by the National Health and Family Planning Commission over the years clearly require that the food matrix (including Class I instant soy flour) used in nutrition packages must be non-GMO. The staff of the above-mentioned soybean flour factory said that the use of genetically modified soybeans to produce food is classified as "non-food raw material processed food" under the Food Safety Law, which is a serious illegal act.
The reporter saw on nutrition packs and related materials in Ningxia and other places that Miltenjia had some skillful handling on five batches of nutrition packs in 2016, such as marking "non-GMO instant" on the packaging. "Soy flour" or "Non-GMO Class I instant soy flour", this practice obviously does not comply with the requirements of the "National Food Safety Standards for Prepackaged Food Labeling General Principles". In addition, the "vitamins" label on the packaging also exceeds the standards given by the national project office.
It is understood that Milianjia’s coverage includes Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Guizhou, Gansu and Yunnan.
A manager surnamed Zhao from Milianjia responded to a reporter from China Times (public account: chinatimes) on the 24th, saying that it is impossible for Militianjia nutrition packs to use genetically modified soybean flour. Militianjia’s soybean flour and Nutritional packages have been tested by authoritative departments. As of press time, reporters were unable to contact the Maternal and Child Health Service Office of Ningxia Health and Family Planning Commission.
Huo Junsheng, a researcher at the Institute of Nutrition and Health of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told a reporter from the China Times (public account: chinatimes) that the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the All-China Women’s Federation issued provincial project bidding and procurement requirements that stipulate that each locality must The importance of product technology and services should be fully reflected in the bidding process, and it is recommended that the quotation score account for no more than 35 of the total score in the bidding process.
However, according to a survey by a domestic professional institution, in the actual bidding process in various places, the price score generally accounts for a large proportion, between 30-35, and even reaches 50 in some provinces. People familiar with the matter said that although the project bidding and procurement requirements initiated by the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the All-China Women's Federation put product quality as the first assessment criterion and emphasized the importance of nutritional package supporting services, this requirement is not mandatory.
The consequence of this is that as long as the price is low, you can win the bid in the local area, but there may be situations where some batches of products are shoddy, delivery is less, or supporting services are shrunk, or even through short-term low prices. It is possible to squeeze out competitors at lower prices and gain the right to speak in the market.
The above-mentioned people familiar with the matter also said that they have repeatedly recommended modifications to the project-related systems, but they depend on the coordination of various departments.
It is difficult for products to take into account taste
Yu Xiaoqian, vice president of the China Maternal and Child Health Association, told a reporter from China Times (public account: chinatimes) that due to lax supervision during project operations, It may happen that the nutrition package products actually distributed by the low-price winning bidder are inconsistent with the qualified products submitted for inspection. Moreover, as nutritional supplements for infants and young children, the promotion effect is closely related to the intrinsic quality such as taste. It is difficult for products bid at low prices to take into account the intrinsic qualities such as taste. At the same time, it is difficult to ensure the supporting publicity and training of nutritional packages.
A village doctor from the clinic in Youfangping Village, Guanzhuang Town, Huaihua City, Hunan Province told the reporter of China Times (public account: chinatimes) that the promotion of nutritional packages in the local area was not good, especially last year when many parents It reflects that the child does not like the taste of the nutrition packet.
The above-mentioned village doctor also said that many parents do not understand the nutrition package and are resistant to it. Some parents even think that expensive things are good, and free things are not good. He believes that the most lacking thing during the implementation of the project is the popularization of knowledge among parents.
According to an interview with a reporter from China Times (public account: chinatimes), many project counties in Huaihua City, Hunan Province have assigned the task of popularizing education to parents to village doctors and conducted performance appraisals on them. , but many villages are facing a serious shortage of village doctors.
Among them, there is only one village doctor in the Laoyaxi Neighborhood Committee Clinic of Yuanling Town, who is responsible for the medical and health care tasks of more than 2,000 people in the village. He is also responsible for the promotion of multiple national health projects.