THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) has awarded Smartmatic International the contract to provide the additional vote counting machines (VCMs) to be used in the forthcoming May 2022 national and local elections.
Based on the Notice of Award issued by the Comelec, Smartmatic – TIM 2016 Inc. was able to bag the P863 million contract for the lease of 10,000 additional units of OMR/OPSCAN Precinct Counter with SD Cards.
The full amount of the contract amounts to P863,971,000 for the lease of 10,000 VCM units (P847,559,000); 10,000 Main SD Cards (P7,474,200); and 10,000 Wormable SD Cards (P8,937,800).
The Comelec has also issued a Notice to Proceed to the winning contractor.
“Please take note of your obligations as a provider, particularly the period of delivery under the schedule of requirements of the Terms of Reference and shall comply within the timeline stipulated in the Bidding Documents,” the Comelec said.
Under the terms of the contract, Smartmatic should deliver the VCMs, Main SD Cards, and Wormable SD Cards in three tranches: 1,000 VCMs/Main SD Cards/Wormable SD Cards in the first batch; 4,000 in the second batch, and 5,000 in the third batch.
To note, it was Smartmatic – TIM that that provided the 97,345 units of VCMs that were leased and, subsequently, were purchased by the Comelec.
The Comelec earlier said it is looking to lease additional VCM units so it can open more polling precincts for the May 2022 polls by reducing the number of registered voters to 800 per polling precinct.
Aside from the additional VCM units, the Comelec also issued the Notice to Proceed to Cofta Mouldings Corporation to deliver the additional ballot boxes to be used in the next elections.
Cofta won the public bidding for the supply and delivery of 48,782 ballot boxes with the amount of P143,906,900.
“The notice is hereby given that you can now proceed with the contract agreement entitled ‘Contract for the Supply and Delivery of Ballot Boxes for use in the 2022 National and Local Elections (NLE)’,” said the Commission.
