SBAC recommends award of P11.2 billion contract
The Special Bids and Awards Committee on Tuesday night submitted its recommendation to the Comelec en banc to award the P11.2 billion poll automation contract to the consortium of Smartmatic and Total Information Management (TIM), as the bidding process for the project nears the finish line.
It should be obvious. It’s the Smartmatic/TIM consortium, said SBAC chair Ferdinand Rafanan, when asked about SBAC’s next step. The last competitor in the bidding, the consortium of AMA and ES&S, on Saturday last week bowed out of the bidding leaving Smartmatic/TIM the last man standing to bag the contract.
Smartmatic passed all the criteria, the legal eligibility, the technical and the financial. It submitted a complying financial bidand then we tested the machines against the 26 criteria, said Rafanan.
The SBAC chair appears relieved that the bidding process is at its tailend, and congratulated himself and his procurement team for setting down the foundations for the 2010 automated elections.
Congratulations. Let us work together. Let’s shock the cynics. We must always follow the law while aiming also at our own goal of an honest, orderly and peaceful electronic elections, said Rafanan.
Seven companies submitted bids at the start of bidding on May 4. But the month-long bidding process saw the rest falling by the wayside, with Smarmatic/TIM emerging as the only bidder who passed the eligibility, financial and technical requirements.
The Comelec, after having received the SBAC recommendation to award the contract to Smartmatic/TIM, would deliberate on the recommendation and award the contract within a week.
With only one qualified bidder, it is unlikely that Comelec would reject the recommendation, Rafanan said.
Filed under: 2010 elections, comelec | Tagged: authomated polls 2010, comelec, smartmatic/tim
