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Contract awarding for poll automation moved anew


MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will not be able to award this month the contract for the P11.3-billion poll automation project, even as the body admits that they are already behind schedule. “Definitely we are behind schedule," Ferdinand Rafanan, chairman of the Special Bids and Awards Committee (SBAC), said on Monday. The poll official said their initial target of awarding the contract by the end of this month has to be moved due to delays caused by the motion for reconsideration filed by several bidders. He said this was something they were not expecting when they prepared the timeline for the automation of next year's elections. “I would say the motion for reconsideration was not taken into account in preparing the original timeline," Rafanan said. He however added that they have “buffer days" to deal with the delay and assured that the May 2010 elections would be computerized. Once the contract has been awarded to the winning bidder, the next step would be to fast-track the manufacturing of the machines that would be used in the elections, Rafanan said. “There will be some kind of speeding up in order to make up for the lost days. It’s not irreversible. It can easily be adjusted. We have to speed up the production of the machines and the customization of these machines," he said. He said they would have to resolve first the motion for reconsideration filed by the AMA group and its partner, ES&S, before they could decide to order the demonstration of the machines. Smartmatic and its partner Total Information Management System (TIMS) was initially advised to bring in their machines to the Comelec for demonstration last week, but the AMA group protested this. The AMA group said the Comelec must resolve the motion for reconsideration first before it allows the demonstration of the machines by Smartmatic/TIMS. - GMANews.TV
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