Losing bidder in Comelec deal goes to SC

THE JOINT venture that lost the bid for the Commission on Elections contract to set up a technical support center for the May elections has asked the Supreme Court to stop the Comelec from awarding the project to Smartmatic-Total Information Management Corp.

In a petition it filed on March 31, Northern Worx KPO Inc., NextIX Inc. and Kit Properties Inc. asked the Supreme Court to reverse the Comelec’s March 16 en banc resolution that affirmed the joint venture’s disqualification.

The petitioners also asked the high court to declare it the winner of the bid for the P122.7-million project.

The Comelec’s National Technical Support Center is the unit mandated to render technical assistance for each component of the automated election system.

Only the joint venture and Smartmatic participated in the bidding conducted in January. The joint venture submitted a bid of P90,899,721 while Smartmatic came out with P122,710,999.

The joint venture pointed out the “glaring difference” between its bid and that of Smartmatic, whose bid was merely 40 centavos less than the value of the contract.

But the poll body’s bids and awards committee disqualified the joint venture the following month after it learned that its net financial contracting capacity—an indicator of its capacity to take on the project—was less than the approved contract value of P122,710,999.40.