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A NT$500 million production line, NT$768 under budget | No bidders the first time, one the second

EP42 · Number check

A NT$500 million production line, NT$768 under budget | No bidders the first time, one the second

Four best-value tenders above NT$100 million: we read every tender, failed-tender and award notice, measured how close each award came to budget, then checked the panel lists.

Capability: Number check
Published: 21 October 2026
Length: 9:52
Format: Long-form (16:9)

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Original YouTube title: 五億的產線，跟預算差七百六十八塊｜第一次沒人來，第二次一家

The method behind this video

Read each tender, failed-tender and award notice and line up every opening date and bidding period: the NT$500 million packaging line failed the first time and was re-tendered with only seven days to bid; the Linluo interchange road gave five days on its third try.
Compare award price with budget directly: the packaging line came in NT$768 under, the Linluo road matched to the dollar, the Checheng Junior High pool NT$3 under and the Kenting transit station NT$4,856 under. All four drew a single bidder in the later round.
Check the tender notice field "Reserve price set": all four are best-value tenders and all four say "No". Without a reserve price there is nothing to bargain down, so the budget is the price.
Pull all 384 awards this year that published their selection panel: the public works director is listed on 75, one public works technical specialist on 49, the director is on all 49 of those, and the two attended together 19 times.
Use the same year's joint school lunch procurement as a baseline: only one of seven panelists came from the organizing education department, eight companies bid, and the award came in at 89% of budget.

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Video description

Show video description

The previous episode found six Pingtung County contracts above NT$100 million awarded at exactly their budget. Then an industry insider commented: the budget is estimated by the contractor in advance; the first round fails with fewer than three bidders, the second round can be awarded to a single bidder, and the referee, the umpire and the linesman are all my people.

It sounded like gossip. We checked it against the county's own published notices, one by one, and it turned out to be a user manual.

The agricultural international-standard packaging line: NT$500 million. The first round failed, the re-tender gave only seven days, one company bid, and its price came in NT$768 under budget. Pricing a NT$500 million deal to within a few hundred dollars takes real chemistry. The Agriculture and Food Agency paid over NT$450 million, and the line appears in the magistrate's 2022 election bulletin. Plenty of campaign promises are broken; few are kept this precisely.

Linluo interchange access road widening: three tender rounds, five days to bid on the third, one bidder, awarded at exactly the budget.

Checheng Junior High indoor practice pool: three rounds, one bidder, NT$3 under budget.

Kenting transit station: three rounds, one bidder, NT$4,856 under budget.

All four were best-value tenders, and the tender notice field "Reserve price set" says: No. Without a reserve price there is nothing to bargain down; the budget is the price.

This year, 266 contracts with a disclosed reserve price drew only one bidder, and 197 were awarded at exactly the reserve price. Reserve prices are confidential by law, yet bidders guessed them 74% of the time. Pingtung's contractors should all be buying lottery tickets.

The selection panels are public too. The Linluo road and the pool shared four of their seven panelists; the public works director and his own technical specialist were listed on panels together 49 times. We have all heard of players acting as referees. A referee taking his linesman onto the pitch to play is a show we fully applaud.

All of it legal. The people who wrote the rules never imagined the referee would run onto the field himself.

So what does normal look like? The same year's joint school lunch procurement drew eight bidders and was awarded at 89% of budget. Pingtung contractors can bargain after all; it depends on the contract.

Every tender ID and every notice is listed below. Open the government procurement portal and check them yourself.

Chapters: 00:00 Opening | 00:24 What the insider said | 01:13 Case one, the production line | 02:32 Case two, Linluo | 03:02 Cases three and four, three rounds | 03:47 Why no reserve price, a one-bidder evaluation | 04:43 The panel lists, referee, umpire and linesman | 06:03 A seven-member panel | 06:36 What the rule writers never imagined | 07:09 What normal looks like, the director's seat, the Labor and Youth Department | 08:18 Let the Labor and Youth Department run the tender | 09:04 Closing

Adapted from the published video description. Watch the original for the full content.

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