Costlier shipping delayed poll machine delivery - Comelec

High shipping costs and the surging volume of goods brought by increased trade during the holidays have delayed the delivery of 12,000 voting machines, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said on Monday. Only 30,000 of the expected 42,200 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines will be delivered to the Philippines by the end of the month, according to Comelec Chairman Jose Melo. “I’m not very comfortable at this time until I see the 30,000 machines to be delivered by December," he said. “I want more."

Contractor Smartmatic-TIM (Total Information Management) will have the poll machines delivered in early January, when shipping costs are expected to have lessened by 20 percent and the traffic of deliveries to have decreased, Melo said. Smartmatic-TIM “will try to take advantage of that (lowered prices and less traffic)," he added. But Melo clarified that the delay only covers transportation and delivery to the Philippines and not in the manufacturing of the machines, since most of the PCOS machines have supposedly been assembled already by Smartmatic-TIM’s factory partner in Suzhou, China. Melo said the government can penalize Smartmatic if it fails to comply with its end of the deal, something which the poll body said it is not too keen on doing. “I’m not interested in penalizing anybody, I’m interested in holding elections," he said. In the meantime, Smartmatic spokesman Gene Gregorio said he was not aware that there would be any delay both in the manufacturing and delivery of the poll machines. “In fact, final delivery of the full 82,000 PCOS will be achieved one week before the original schedule," he told GMANews.TV in a phone interview, adding that they have a capacity of producing 3,000 PCOS machines per day. Melo also said that 100 PCOS machines have arrived earlier and are already being used for training and voter education. A GMANews.TV report filed in November said that the poll preparations have already been delayed by one month. - RJAB, Jr., GMANews.TV