By YVONNE CHUA
VERA Files
The winner of the government’s P7.2 billion
automated elections project will get close to P3 billion, or 40
percent of the contract amount, even before it delivers all the
82,200 counting machines to be used in the May 2010 elections.
Under the contract signed on July 10, the
Conmission on Elections will be paying Smartmatic TIM Corp.
about P3 billion for a range of goods and services that include
starting up the project, delivering the "development set,"
customizing voter education materials and putting up a Website
in the contract’s first four months.
Smartmatic TIM Corp. will get P2.5 billion
for the counting machines, called Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS)
units, which will be delivered in four batches: 12,000 in
November, 30,000 in December, another 30,000 in January and
12,200 in February.
