MANILA — The Department of Transportation (DOTr) on Monday said it was expecting new driver's license plastic cards to be delivered in 60 days.

This, after DOTr awarded the project last week to Banner Plastic Card Inc., the contractor behind LandBank's Visa debit cards.

The company has yet to receive a notice before it pushes through with the delivery of around 500,000 license cards by the end of July or the first week of August.

It also passed the pre-test and conducted a proof of concept on June 16, with almost all cards accepted by the system of LTO's IT provider Dermalog.

• LTO awaits procurement of plastic cards for driver's license

LOWEST BID

Banner posted a higher bid than its competition for the project, AllCard, pegged at P219 million inclusive of taxes for procuring license cards.

Allcard Inc. posted a bid for the driver's license project at P177 million, inclusive of taxes.

Both AllCard and Banner offered lower bids than the government's pegged price of the project of P240 million to produce around 5.2 million pieces of cards.

However, a post-qualification evaluation revealed that AllCard was disqualified over delays in a project with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

"It is worth noting that Allcard also incurred delays in its ongoing contracts with the Social Security System and Land Bank of the Philippines. Albeit, these delays did not amount to at least ten percent of the contract price, the same is tantamount to the unsatisfactory performance on its obligations under the contract," the Technical Working Group stated in its report during the post-qualification online meet.

"In view foregoing premises, the CBAC-Technical Working Group for Goods and Services respectfully recommends the post-disqualification of Allcard, Inc. for the Procurement of Pre-Printed Polycarbonate Driver's License Cards Project based on the above-mentioned findings and observations," the group added.

Transport Secretary Jaime Bautista confirmed that DOTr had signed the project to Banner Plastic Card Inc.

“Controversial itong bidding na ito. There was one lowest bidder but they were disqualified because of some delays with government projects. I did realize sa government procurement policies andami pa lang regulations and procedures. So medyo nadelay ang few days but last week we have awarded na the contract to another company. We have already signed with them," Bautista said.

As of writing, LTO had a backlog of 690,000 driver's licenses.

• Amid plastic card shortage, LTO says to launch 'digital licenses'
• DOTr says to resolve license cards, plates issue ASAP

The LTO has extended the validity of driver's licenses that have expired starting April 24 until October 21.

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