Voting machine contract awarded to Smartmatic

Smartmatic PCOS machine (Comrade Mijur / Technically Juris on Blogspot)

MANILA — Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) was awarded the P1.7 billion voting machine contract to lease 23,000 optical mark reader (OMR) machines for the 2016 polls.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) approved the awarding of the project with an approved budget of P2.

5 billion.

The Comelec Special Bids and Awards Committee -1 (SBAC-1) has also recommended  in Resolution No. 2015-004 the issuance of the “Notice of Award” to the joint venture for its bid offer of more than P1.7 billion

“SBAC-1 resolves to recommend to the head of the procuring entity the issuance of the Notice of Award (to the joint venture) as the bidder with the lowest calculated responsive bid for the lease with option to purchase of election management system and precinct-based OMR or optical scan system,” the committee said.

The committee also added in the resolution that Smartmatic-TIM should “post its corresponding performance security in an amount equal to a percentage of the total contract price.”

The project will supplement two options that the Comelec is eyeing for the elections next year.

One option is to to lease 70,000 more OMR machines while the other is to refurbish some 81,000 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines.