For the portfolio managed by Arbeleche, the bidding process that had the company as the winner S2Global was “transparent and adjusted to law”also endorsed by several reports from the Legal advice of the TCR itself, who were “unknown” by the “political majority” —the three ministers who answer to the broad front— in that control body, in an action that the minister described as “contrary to the interests of the country.”
For this reason, and also endorsed by the legal services of the MEF, the purchase process continued.
However, and to avoid further problems, Arbeleche asked to be received at the Parliament —a hearing that was agreed for today— with the objective of informing “first-hand” and justifying the entire process before the legislators of the Finance Commission.
The novel of the three scanners
The purchase of the three scanners is intended, according to the government, to prevent smuggling and transportation of illegal merchandisesupporting a precarious system that currently has a single device of these characteristics in the Port of Montevideo.
The winning company of the tender in May 2022, over two other companies, was S2 Global, which offered scanners of USA. The result was based on technical weighting and economic evacuation, and the Adjudication Advisory Commission was in charge of publicizing the decision according to which the company Probe, which offered Chinese scanners, came in second. The tender was for a total amount of 1,649,102 pesos, approximately 42 million dollars, and has a duration of ten years.
The problem began when Sonda appealed the result, indicating that aspects that were not detailed in the tender were valued, which caused it to obtain a lower score. However, at the end of October 2022, the TCR Adjudication Commission ruled in favor of continuing with the process, although with the observed spending.
Faced with this, the MEF requested the reconsideration of the observation, and on January 10 the Court repeated the initial verdict. The steps to follow to finalize the purchase, which has been going on for several years, were the reiteration of the expense by the MEF, but the Arbeleche portfolio decided to proceed with the bidding anyway.
Source: Ambito
