IPNEWS: The National Elections Commission (NEC) Bid Evaluation Panel has re-written the five bidders, who had previously done their bids opening for them to come again so that their bids can be re-evaluated. This time around, the Elections Body has succumbed to the whims of the Public Procurement and Concession Commission (PPCC), which demanded the re-evaluation process. Therefore, the NEC is forced to redo the process.
Initially, six bidders had submitted bids to NEC but one of them was disqualified by the NEC from the get-go because they didn’t live up to the bid requirements. Only five were allowed to the bids opening. It’s these five bidders that the NEC has written for them to come back and redo their presentations. The five are Professional Services/HID, Electoral Services, and Laxton Group. Others are Ekemp/INITS/Palm Insurance and Waymark Infotech/Mwenata. These companies had submitted bids to carry out the 2023 Voters Registration biometric voter card process.
After the first public opening on July 29, 2022, of the five bidders, a bid evaluation panel comprising five NEC staff was constituted. The panel worked for three weeks and on August 26, 2022, submitted its report to the NEC Procurement Committee, which eventually selected Ekemp International, INITS Limited and Palm Insurance because in their joint venture bid, they were the “most responsive bidder in the international competitive bidding for the IFB No. NEC/VRPLE/ICB/001/2002.”
The companies chosen initially are a combination of three companies, which had poured their resources together to win the bid. One of the three combined entities—Palm Insurance—is a Liberian-owned insurance company. The other two, Ekemp is a Chinese-own and INITS is Nigerian-based.
After the NEC had exhausted its internal processes, it wrote the PPCC asking for a “no objection” for it to grant Ekemp/INITS/Palm Joint Venture the go ahead to do the biometric process.
But the PPCC, which now stands accused by some of doing the dirty works of some of the companies that failed and didn’t meet the requirements as were spelled out in the bid, rejected the NEC’s request. Instead, the PPCC has created more bottlenecks, which might likely lead to hampering of the 2023 election timeline for the December 15, 2022 start of voters’ registration.
According to a September 20th, 2022 communication, the PPCC demanded that among other things, it wants to see a video-recorded demonstration before it can give its approval for the Elections body to continue with its process.
So, the NEC wrote on September 26, 2022:
“Re-Demonstration of Physical Presentation
Dear Bidders:
The Public Procurement & Concessions Commission (PPCC) has requested that bidders be re-invented to appear before theBid Evaluation Panel of the NEC for a video-recorded re-demonstration of the physical presentations, regarding bid IFB No. NEC/VRPLE/ICB/001/2022.
In this regard, the Bid Evaluation Panel has scheduled bidders to appear before it at date and time as shown in the below schedule.
Each bidder is requested start with a Power-point presentation regarding the equipment and software to be used, followed by an actual demonstration of its data entry, printing and de-duplication process using a person/persons designated by the Panel.
Please have a copy of the Power-Point Presentation (on a flash drive) to submit to the Panel on the day of the presentation. Please also note that the Panel has decided to invite stakeholders and others to observe the presentations.”
Professional Services/HID, Electoral Services and Laxton Group are scheduled to appear on October 6; while Ekemp/INITS/Palm and Waymark Infotech/Mwetana have been scheduled to present on October 7, 2022.
