>Why wouldn't corrupt people just bid low and give the public manager a bigger kickback? Well, if the public manager has no powers in the assignment, there is

>Why wouldn't corrupt people just bid low and give the public manager a bigger kickback? Well, if the public manager has no powers in the assignment, there is no reason why the builder should "pay" him/her, from this point of view lowest bid is effective as an anti-corruption method. And by bidding low the builder will have less available money to possibly attempt to bribe anyone. But then (maybe - just hypothetical) once the lowest bidder is awarded the contract they will find each and every possible way (including bribing) to get more money for the contract, changes, improvements, extensions, etc.. The usual counter-argument is that all builders are the same, so if you award the contract to (say) the 2nd lower bidder, they will make exactly the same, only starting from a higher "base", There are often very fine lines between "contributing to bankrupcy of builder", "paying a fair price" and "spend too much public money".