Disqualified bidder for LTO proj seeks Palace intervention

MANILA, Philippines - The losing bidder for the P8.2 billion road information technology infrastructure project of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) slammed the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and is now seeking Malacañang’s  intervention .

In a letter to President Aquino, the consortium of Digitext Asia Corp., Mumbai-based Trimax IT Infrastructure and Services, and Newtech Media Solutions and Trading Corp. warned the government stands to lose P4.4 billion in potential savings after it was disqualified by the DOTC.

Early last month, the DOTC announced it was extending the contract of Stradcom Corp. after the group of Digitext failed in the post-qualification process due to the lack of valid mayor’s permit for year 2012 and non-submission of bill of quantities of items proposed.

The agency has informed the next lowest bidder Fritz & Macziol that its bid is now being considered under post-qualification process.

Digitext Asia submitted the lowest bid of P3.8 billion followed by Fritz and Macziol Asia with P5.3 billion, and Eurolink Network with P5.8 billion.

The four other companies which purchased bidding documents but did not participate in the bidding were Stradcom Smartmatic, Oberthur Technologies and Indra Sistemas SA.

The Digitext Group asked President Aquino to intervene and order the DOTC to conduct a proof of concept as the basis for the company’s disqualification has no basis.

Trimax is a $156-million company based in Mumbai, India that offers end-to-end IT services and solutions, managed IT services, data center host, build and co-location services, remote infrastructure management, and facility management services for various industries such as banking and financial services, insurance, transport, government and large companies.