Research On The Government’s Procurement Of Pre-settlement Audit Services In Infrastructure

Alongside with the booming economy,the government has attached greater importance to the investment in the infrastructure field,and infrastructure projects have sprung up.After the adoption of the 13 th Five-Year Plan in 2016,the state has put forward a range of highly targeted and effective projects in the areas of poverty alleviation of rural population,ecological and environmental protection,social development and people’s livelihood.Against such backdrop,the project number and scale of pre-settlement audit services are on the rise with high demands in professionalization and diversification.Thus,the shortcomings of basic-level governments have gradually emerged,such as the slow reserve of talents and technology and the low utilization rate of social forces,which have become the weak link in the pre-settlement services in the field of local infrastructure.The procurement of services to a certain extent can alleviate the government’s management pressure in this field,the qualified social forces are more professional,targeted and efficient,which can also help to more objective,impartial and transparent working mechanism,thus it is an effective approach to improve the government’s function.nevertheless,given the pre-settlement audit is highly specialized,for the grass-roots government,,how to realize the service procurement and maximize the investment benefits is a realistic problem faced by the basic-level governments.In this study,a pre-settlement audit service procurement chain is built under the guidance of principal and agency theory.Taking the purchase process of pre-settlement audit services in the infrastructure field of R District in J City as the research object,this paper carries out an empirical analysis on three key problems of specific content,means and results in its procurement.Combined with the methods of literature research,case study,interview and participatory observation,and supported by previous researches at home and abroad,an interview was made with a staff of J Municipal Finance Bureau and intermediary agencies apart from the author’s personal participation and observation.The current situation and existing problems in the purchase of pre-settlement audit services in the infrastructure field of R District are deeply discussed through multiple ways.It is found that before purchasing pre-settlement audit services of infrastructure,J Municipal Finance Bureau has difficulties in laying down more accurate purchase service demand,because the differentiation between government structure and market structure requirements,the government related process,regulations,and resources gap between the intermediary factors all lead to bounded rationality.Amid service supervision,the J Municipal Finance Bureau and the intermediary agency have "free-riding" and opportunistic problems due to the information asymmetry and imperfect constraint mechanism;in the later service evaluation process,the defects in performance index design and imperfect incentive mechanism even give rise to moral hazard of the intermediary in harming the interests of the principal.On the basis of the principal-agency theory,this paper analyzes how to avoid bounded rationality,various agent problems and improper governance of R District Finance Bureau in the purchase process of pre-settlement services in R District of J City,and puts forward countermeasures and suggestions to optimize the pre-settlement services in the infrastructure field: First,improve the supervision system in infrastructure,clarify the pre-settlement audit objectives,address the limited rationality of the client in formulating the purchase service demand from the root;Second,enhance the audit supervision and management,avoid the "free-riding" phenomenon of intermediary agencies in the audit service,refine the pre-settlement audit indicators,and cut down the opportunistic operation room for intermediary agencies to "reap the profits";Third,introduce the reward and punishment incentive mode,perfect the performance appraisal mechanism,maximize the enthusiasm of intermediary agencies,and improve the quality of service outsourcing.It is hoped that this study can facilitate governments at all levels to purchase infrastructure pre-settlement audit service in a scientific,standardized way,so that make use of the professionals in the allocation of market resources,develop effective supply mechanism,improve the relation between government and enterprises,help grass-roots government to reasonably allocate resources,advance the specialization,delicacy management of basic-level government audit center,as well as make the financial review more objective,impartial and healthy.