On February 9th, 2022, the Ministry of Finance issued Circular No. 08/2022/TT-BTC guiding on the management and use of revenues and expenditures in the process of investor selection (hereinafter referred to as “Circular 08/2022”) with the following notable matters:
a. Supplementing regulations on funding sources in investor selection bidding:
Circular 08/2022 stipulates the source of funding for investor selection bidding (hereinafter referred to as “bidding fund”) suitable to the essence of each type of project. Accordingly, for the PPP projects, the bidding fund shall be allocated from the public investment capital of the competent authorities. While the projects are subject to bidding, the bidding funding shall be allocated from the regular budget of the party calling for tenders.
b. Supplementing regulations on the setting, approving and complying with estimates of recurrent expenditures:
Circular 08/2022 has fully supplemented regulations on competence, order, procedures, dossiers, approval and compliance with regular cost estimates for bidding work to the projects requiring bidding to select investors. The new regulation creates a legal basis for relevant agencies and units to apply in the process of setting, approving and complying with estimates of recurrent expenditures for investor selection bidding.
c. Supplementing regulations on management and use of funds in investor selection bidding:
Circular 08/2022 has supplemented regulations on management and use of funds in investor selection bidding in accordance with the organizational model of the party calling for tenders, including the case that the party calling for tenders is the Management Board of the project, a specialized unit under a competent authority (for PPP projects) or a public non-business unit, an administrative unit (for projects subject to bidding).
d. Supplementing regulations on management and use of funding sources to settle investors’ petitions:
According to the provisions of Circular 08/2022, the petitioning investor’s funding for petition settlement shall be submitted to the assisting section of the Advisory Council in accordance with regulations. The management and use of the funds for payment of petitions shall comply with the estimate approved by the Chairman of the Advisory Council. At the end of the case, if the actual spending is less than the fee paid by the investor, the assistance department shall be refunded the difference to the investor.
If the petitioning of the investor is concluded to be correct, the party calling for tenders have responsible for allocating from the estimate of the unit’s recurrent expenditures of the units (administrative unit, public non-business unit) or from the operating funds of the unit to return the part of the funding that the investor has paid.
Circular 08/2022 takes effect from March 25th, 2022.
Download the legal update as a PDF here.
