Last minute changes, as well as restrictive and flawed requirements, led to the failure of bid for the automation of elections, several bidders told abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) last week declared as "ineligible" the seven consortia that bid for the P11.3 billion poll computerization after failing to submit some  required documents.

The Comelec is expected anytime to come up with a consolidated resolution on the motions for reconsideration filed by the bidders.

Three bidders agreed to talk to abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak provided they will not be identified. The Comelec Special Bids and Awards Committee (SBAC) has issued a gag order on the bidders supposedly to prevent outside influence from affecting the bid process.

Two of the bidders said that the Terms of Reference (TOR), as well as the succeeding bid bulletins that essentially revised and added new requirements, led to the failure in the initial bidding. A third one, however, did not complain about the stringent eligibility requirements imposed by the SBAC.

ISO requirement

For one, the SBAC required that all the participating firms should submit an ISO (International Organization for Standardization) certification even if this does not apply to some of the bidders. Majority of the bidders failed on the eligibility screening for failure to submit their ISO certification. Some of them submitted the ISO certification of their subsidiaries.

One of the bidders said ISO certifications are “owned” by the manufacturers of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines, the technology that will be applied in the May 2010 polls, and bidders thought such ISO requirement does not have to be produced by the “parent company” in the consortium.

“The SBAC was being fair in applying the requirement that every partner in the consortium should produce an ISO certification, but it was not in line with reality,” one bidder said.

EPA certificate

Another bidder referred to the requirement for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certification that “is unnecessary (since) election providers do not normally have this certification.” In the US, for instance, election providers are not required to have EPA certifications for their machines.

The SBAC, replying to a query by a bidder, however, insisted that suppliers should secure an EPA, or a “certification from similar government agency in the country of origin.”

The bid bulletins issued by the SBAC, where it clarified some of the questions and issues raised by the bidders, provided confusion instead.

Import license

For instance, in Bid Bulletin No. 21 issued on April 22, the SBAC required that bidders submit an import license as part of the eligibility requirement, which is not applicable to some of the firms.

“We were surprised when that requirement came out. Some of the bidders are not into importing goods, why require them an import license?” one bidder said.

The bidder said it takes a month to secure an import license from the Bureau of Customs, and with the deadline for the submission and opening of bids set on May 4, “there was no more time to secure an import license.”

Among the bidders that failed to submit an import license were the Indra Elections Consortium, and the AMA Group of Companies.

Subcontracting machines

The Comelec SBAC also barred the bidders from subcontracting the assembly of PCOS machines “which veers away from standard industry practice,” noted the bidders.

The two bidders said tapping a “third party or partner ” to manufacture or assemble the machines is a standard practice in the US “so it won't be costly.”

The Manual of Procedures for the Procurement of Goods and Services of the Government Procurement Policy Board states that “a supplier may be allowed to subcontract a portion of the contract or project” provided that the subcontracted portion of the contract would “not exceed 20 percent of the total cost.”

“There should be no problem as long as we do not subcontract the assembly of PCOS whose cost should not exceed 20 percent of the total cost,” one bidder said. Based, on the P11.3 billion budget, this amounts to P2.26 billion.

Fifty percent of project cost

But the biggest hurdle that the SBAC imposed was that bidders should submit or present contracts they have implemented whose cost was equivalent to half of the total automation project cost.

In this respect, the SBAC itself could not make up its mind.

In the original Terms of Reference, the Comelec said that bidders should have completed a contract that is 50 percent of P11.3 billion.

A few days later, the SBAC amended this provision, saying that bidders can qualify as long as they can show three contracts completed in the past three years whose total amount is equivalent to 50 percent of P11.3 billion. The largest of the three contracts should amount to 25 percent of the total automation cost.

Revision

SBAC chair Ferdinand Rafanan later clarified that the three-contract requirement is an option for bidders if they cannot come up with single contract that is 50 percent of P11.3 billion.

While the SBAC move to relax the financial requirement is laudable since it would accommodate more bidders and equal the playing field, a bidder said the 50-percent floor requirement favored only foreign bidders.

“Local companies would be hard press to come up with a contract that is P5.61 billion. That is why some had to rely on foreign partners,” the bidder said.

Abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak sought to interview Rafanan, but he could not be contacted as of this writing. We asked the opinions of two commissioners but they said the whole bidding process is the call of the SBAC.

One of the observers of the bidding process, Toix Cerna of Transparency and Accountability Network, said that the SBAC has so far been fair and just in assessing the qualifications of the bidders.