The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has allocated over P660 million to refurbish its vote counting machines (VCMs) and purchase consumables as part of its preparations for the 2022 polls.
On Tuesday, the poll body announced that it started issuing bidding documents for said service contract, which has an approved budget of P660,741,660.47.
Under the contract, bidders will have to refurbish 97,345 units of VCMs in four tranches – from May, 1, 2021 to September 30, 2021.
“The VCMs will be refurbished for use in the 2022 National and Local elections,” Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said.
The company will also have to supply 109,745 pieces of Secure Digital (SD) Cards (Main) and Worm SD Cards (Back-up) and 250,000 pieces of cleaning sheets.
In its invitation to bid, Comelec said it will conduct an open competitive bidding process using a non-discretionary “pass/fail” criterion as specified in the 2016 Revised Implementing Rules and Regulation of Republic Act 9184.
It is open to all bidders, whether local or foreign, subject to the conditions of eligibility provided in Republic Act 9184.
To qualify for the bidding process, bidders should also have completed, within 10 years from the date of submission and receipt bids, a contract similar to the project like the refurbishment of Precinct-based Optical Mark Reader or Optical Scan System.
Comelec said the bidding document may be acquired by interested bidders at the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System and the Comelec website provided they pay the applicable fee for the bidding documents not later than submission of their bids.
It will conduct an online pre-bid conference on Nov. 25, 2020.
The deadline for submission of bids is on Dec. 9, 2020. Comelec will opening the bids for the said contract on the same day.
Image credits: AP/Aaron Favila