If you always give the contract to the company that offers the lowest price, don't be surprised that it eventually gets too low to cover the real costs.
80k for a project that likely consists of months of filing for permits, coordinating tens of people and machines? Sounds like a joke.
>After the prescribed date, the bids are opened and assessed, and either the "lowest cost" or "most economically advantageous tender" is chosen. The contract award must also be reported in the OJEU and be published electronically on Tenders Electronic Daily ('TED'). [1]
It's difficult to choose the best offer if you are legally obliged to choose the cheapest one. This has led to a situation where all companies have to make cheap offers. The only way to make money is by invoicing bills for unforeseen work that wasn't covered by the original offer.
The irony of the situation is that there was an offer by the industry to build the airport for a fixed price. But Berlin chose to build the airport by themselves because that was supposed to be cheaper.
Well, Athens chose the other way: [2]
> However, after delays and slow development, the project was revived in 1991 with the then government launching an international tender for the selection of a build-own-operate-transfer partner for the airport project, with Hochtief of Germany being selected.
>In 1996, Athens International Airport S.A. (AIA) was established as a Public–private partnership with a 30-year concession agreement.[1] That same year, the €2.1 billion development finally began with an estimated completion date of February 2001. The airport construction was completed five months before schedule, but was delayed opening a month due to surface connections to Attiki Odos not being completed. The airport officially opened on March 28, 2001.
> If you always give the contract to the company that offers the lowest price, don't be surprised that it eventually gets too low to cover the real costs.
It's a known problem no one seems to care about. The Swiss do it better: They throw the cheapest and most expensive offers out and pick a contractor from the middle price range. Seems to work well for them in most cases.
> 80k for a project that likely consists of months of filing for permits, coordinating tens of people and machines?
It was a small bridge for pedestrians and cyclists that was closed about 5 weeks before they took it down, which took the crane just a couple hours.
It was a project as simple as it gets and they still went way over budget while also leaving half the bridge standing. I just wish I could say this was an outlier, but it's commonplace around here.
80k for a project that likely consists of months of filing for permits, coordinating tens of people and machines? Sounds like a joke.