LTO-IT project not yet awarded to any bidder -DOTC

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Transportation and Communications on Tuesday clarified that the P8.2-billion information technology infrastructure project for the Land Transportation Office has not yet been awarded to any company during the opening of bid documents. 

In a statement, the DOTC said that last Monday that only the lowest bidder was announced in the open and transparent procurement exercise.

"The granting of the notice of award comes much later after the opening of bids in all biddings of the government. This is just among the rigid and several steps required by law, before the award of government projects, to ensure that public funds are properly allocated," the DOTC said.

The DOTC added that he next step is for department to conduct a thorough bid evaluation and post-qualification process to address other remaining technical and administrative issues.

Last Monday, five out of the nine companies that purchased bid documents participated in the open and transparent procurement process. 

Digitext offered the lowest bid at P3.8 billion, followed by Fritz and Macziol Asia which offered P5.3 billion, while Eurolink was third at P5.8 billion.

Other bidders were Kaisa Consulting and Ceragon Network.

Financial bids of the two participating bidders - Kaisa Consulting and Ceragon Network - were not opened because of lack of technical requirements.

Kaisa was considered as non-complying for lack of schedule of requirements, while Ceragon also lacked schedule of requirements and certificate of reciprocity for a foreign consortium to qualify for the bid.

"Government bidding is composed of two components – the technical and the financial bid. In the case of Kaisa and Ceragon, what we opened were only their technical bids. We were not able to proceed with the opening of the financial bids accordingly because they failed to submit the required documentary materials," the DOTC added.

Four other companies purchased bidding documents but did not participate in the bidding including Stradcom Corporation, the current system provider of the LTO-IT, Smartmatic, Oberthur Technologies and Indra Sistemas, S.A.

The DOTC expects that once the automation systems of LTO and Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board are up and running, the government will be able to eliminate cases of PUVs securing an LTFRB franchise without LTO registration, as well as PUVs that are registered with the LTO but have no LTFRB franchise.

"We estimate several more months or sometime in August next year before the new IT system provider can fully implement the LTO IT Road IT Infrastructure Project. Once the new IT set up is complete, which the government will own and operate, it will allow LTO to earn approximately an additional P2 billion a year since all computer fees will accrue to government," DOTC said.