Table Talk By: Mike S. Apostol No failure of bidding in Zamcelco, Why? The recent controversial bidding for the supply of electric meters in Zamcelco which was the subject of this column last week is now under process for purchase despite the fact that Red Dragon brand electric meters made in Red China to be supplied by CARAGA, a known supplier of electric steel post, failed the metering test of Zamcelco. The findings against Red Dragon electric meters by Zamcelco “technical people” is alarming because it allegedly aggravates the high systems loss of Zamcelco instead of lowering it down. What is surprising, in the bidding, was that, the first recommendation of the Zamcelco Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) to the Zamcelco board was that Red Dragon electric meters of CARAGA failed the metering test, which therefore renders Red Dragon of CARAGA disqualified to supply the electric meters. However, instead of conducting a re-bidding, which is a normal course of action under the public bidding policy that it must always be advantageous to the government and “the buyer has the right to reject any bidder”, the Zamcelco BAC allegedly backtracked and issued another recommendation in favor of CARAGA ignoring their first negative recommendation. What happened? *** There is something intriguing in this bidding that cast doubts on the actions of the BAC. A re-bidding could have been a better option since some of the losing bidders lost only on some technicalities and pricing but are offering better brand and quality electric meters. While we believe that lower price of an item is a better choice but it is not always the leverage in a bidding process, because quality and advantages of an item is given more weight that its price if it can be justified. Since accordingly that CARAGA is sure to supply Zamcelco with meters that allegedly flunk the metering test, only NEA can save Zamcelco. NEA has the final approval on all purchases above 500,000.00 pesos on electric cooperatives that are considered category C and Zamcelco is category C electric cooperative. *** Table Talk is not accusing anybody for anomalies but prudence should have been initiated by the BAC members and other cooperative officials. In a multi-million transaction, any deviation to the process of supply purchases must satisfy the end users and this is not a discretion, that, only the buyer which is Zamcelco or the BAC members and some cooperative officials are authorized to exercise solely, unless there are better personal reasons from CARAGA supplier that made the transaction allegedly a “done deal”. *** Scoop: A coin has two sides, a “head” and a “tail”, it can never be all “heads” or all “tail”, it will be cheating. In a matter of days, Zamcelco will have its General Assembly meeting, Table Talk hopes this Assembly will be fruitful because we were informed that “up” for discussion is the future of the cooperative on whether it should be privatize or not or that its top management should be given to a private entity. I hope this information fed to Table Talk is wrong. Agree or disagree. ***
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 02:06:52 +0000
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