Capitol to buy P254M heavy equipment

CEBU, Philippines- Only two of the five pre-qualified suppliers were left to bid for the Capitol’s purchase of heavy equipment in the amount of P254 million during the opening of bid yesterday.

The Bids and Awards Committee has declared RDAK Transport Equipment and Civic Merchandising Inc.-Volvo Construction Equipment as the only bidders to have complied with the requirements.

RDAK has the lowest bid price of P235,050,000 while Civic Merchandising Inc.-Volvo Construction Equipment has a bid price of P237,168,000.

Provincial General Services Office head Jone Siegfred Sepe, who is also member of BAC, said RDAK, being the lowest bidder, shall undergo post-qualification evaluation.

Civic lawyer Johnson Hontanosas manifested his observation that the joint venture of RDAK with an unidentified company is not registered with the Security and Exchange Commission making it as non-entity.

Hontanosas said the partner of RDAK also seemed to be no experience in supplying such a huge amount of government funds. The partner company also did not purchase bid documents which is among the requirements in order to participate in the bidding process.

He claimed that the Civic Merchandising is the only bidder that complies with the Republic Act No. 8495 otherwise known as the Philippine Mechanical Engineering Act of 1998.

 Section 35 paragraph 2 provides that, “Likewise, proposals and quotations for the supply and fabrication of mechanical equipment, works, projects, plants, mechanical pollution abatement systems, mechanical fire protection systems, pressurized pipes with a working pressure of not less than 70 kpa., shall be duly signed and sealed by a Professional Mechanical Engineer.”

BAC chairman and provincial administrator Mark Tolentino noted the manifestation and will take it up during their post-evaluation process.

Other suppliers, TKC Heavy Industries also manifested to file motion for reconsideration while ConEquip Philippines also asked time to submit the notarized omnibus sworn statement which was allegedly overlooked during the submission of documents.

BAC earlier identified five suppliers to bid the heavy equipment during the pre-bid conference last month and paid the P50,000 each as non-refundable bid fee. One supplier, JVF Commercial, reportedly backed out.

 The equipment includes various brands of boom truck, bulldozers, dump trucks, forklift, water tank truck, excavator, wheel loader, motor grader, road roller, lift truck and 10-wheeler self loading truck.  (FREEMAN)