July 2, 2009 · Posted in: 2010 Elections, Comelec Watch, Governance, In the News
Good-bye automated elections?
Our latest two-part report looks at how the billion-peso automated elections project of the Commission on Elections now hangs by a thin thread on account of the supposed “irreconcilable differences” between the partners Smartmatic International Corporation and the Total Information Management Corporation.
Part 1 of the report reveals how the 19-page joint venture agreement between the contractors assigned greater power and control over the contract and project funds in favor of Smartmatic, and provides for what could be a long and testy arbitration process in Singapore, should the parties fail to reach an amicable settlement.
1 Response to Good-bye automated elections?
javida
July 6th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
The JV agreement only specifies in general the scope of responsibilities of the two partners. The key documents are the contracts between the JVC and the various suppliers eg. Smartmatic Inc. provision of PCOS machines, software, etc, the amounts to be paid, liabilities, etc. Same with TIM, Inc for the provision of goods and services for logistics, transmission, etc, amounts to be paid, liabilities, etc. It should be expected that the two would have further supplier agreements with other entities. These various contracts could be potential deal-breakers.
Smartmatic Inc being the technology supplier would limit its risks and liabilities to the goods and services that it knows well and can control well. TIM, Inc appears to carry the riskier components from an implementation point of view. For example, the cost of delivery of a PCOS machine to Tawi-Tawi would be much
higher than the cost to deliver to Bulacan and there are over 80,000 delivery points. TIM, Inc is also responsible for the transmission. It’s safe to assume that the two largest telco carriers could not provide 100% coverage, thus the added cost to bring 100% coverage is a risk to TIM, Inc. not to mention the costs for providing security safeguards in the network.
The details of each supplier’s deliverables and the associated costs have to be clearly stated in the supplier agreement. We will see if these two partners can really come to an agreement when they start negotiating these agreements.
On Comelec’s part, they should demand to have a copy of the various suppliers agreements so it can assess, I hope, the various risks in this big project. Other gov’t agencies who have contracted large IT ntegration projects who have learned their lessons do this.