THE Commission on Elections-Special Bids and Awards Committee 2 (Comelec-SBAC 2) declared a failure of bidding on Tuesday for the P2.07-billion contract for the repair and refurbishment of more than 80,000 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines that are being eyed for use in next year’s elections
Comelec-SBAC 2 Chairman Jubil Surmieda announced the failure of bidding after no companies submitted their offer for the project.
It can be recalled that three companies—Total Information Management (TIM) Corp., Indra Sistemas S.A. and Vertex Business Applications Inc.—initially expressed their interest for the project by purchasing bid documents.
“Wala kasi nag-submit ng bid. Tatlo ang bumili ng bid documents, walang nag-submit. So, under the rules, that’s equivalent to a failure of bidding,” Surmieda told reporters.
In its letter submitted to the SBAC 2, Smartmatic-TIM said it decided not to participate in the bidding after the Comelec reduced the budget for the contract from the original amount of P2,880,000,000 last week.
It branded the new approved budget as “unrealistic” as it lowered the repair price per PCOS unit to P11,141 per PCOS from the original P20,513 each.