2 firms qualify for IT project

MANILA, Philippines - Two companies are expected to slug it out for the P3.44-billion Land Transportation Office (LTO) information technology system project, the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) said yesterday.

Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said the government has qualified two bidders for the project while other disqualified bidders have filed motions for reconsideration (MRs). “Two have qualified and those who didn’t as usual filed MRs,” Abaya said.

The two companies that qualified for the two-stage bidding are Indra Systems Inc. and Kaisa Consulting and Ceragon Network.

The joint DOTC and LTO committee is expected to look into the proof of concept of both Indra and Kaisa Consulting before going to bidding proper for the project.

The new IT system would provide a viable and long-term solution to address the current system’s issues.  The previous LTO IT system of Stradcom, which has been running for 13 years, is no longer responsive to current land transportation regulation requirements.

Once the new LTO-IT system is in place, it would make it easier for authorities to recover stolen vehicles, trace smuggled vehicles, prevent double registration and monitor unregistered vehicles.

The DOTC has decided to slash the cost of the LTO-IT system project to P3.44 billion instead of P8.2 billion after two failed biddings. The project would instead be undertaken in two stages.