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No full payment yet for Smartmatic, Comelec assures


(Updated 3:52 PM) - Smartmatic-TIM — the supplier of voting machines used for the May polls — has yet to be paid in full, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said on Monday, a day after Speaker Prospero Nograles asked that payment be withheld. The poll body has yet to decide when to make the full payment of the P7.2-billion automation contract to Smartmatic and its local partner TIM, Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said in an interview with reporters. "There's a procedure for them to be paid certain amounts. May milestones yan (There are milestones for that). The reports will be the basis for us to consider paying them," he said. However, only 20 to 30 percent of the P7.2-billion automation contract remains unpaid, he said. Article 4 of the contract with Smartmatic says that "no payment, partial or final, shall be made except upon a certification by Comelec chairman or Project Management Office concerned to the effect that the services or supplies and materials have been rendered or delivered in accordance with this contract and have been duly inspected and accepted." The commissioner issued the statement after Nograles said that the Comelec should not fully pay Smartmatic until the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee (JCOC) on Poll Automation can give the public "a clean bill of health" about the first automated polls. A week before the automated polls, Smartmatic-TIM had to recall and reconfigure the compact flash cards in the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines because the machines were not able to read some of the test ballots. In some cases, the machines transmitted the wrong data, attributing votes to candidates whose names were not ticked on the test ballot. Many of the glitch-filled PCOS machines caused major delays in polling places on May 10, compelling the Comelec to extend the 11-hour voting period by an hour to 7 p.m. Besides the automation project, Smartmatic was also awarded the P243-million contract to produce and supply the ballot boxes for the May elections. - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV
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