Thursday, October 05, 2006
Poll body may take apart idle vote count equipment (3:05 p.m.)
MANILA -- Instead of letting it go to waste, the Commission on Elections may just dismantle the P1.3 billion worth of automated counting machines (ACMs) it had been keeping for the past three years and use its parts for other purposes.
"If they can't be used for elections, then perhaps we they can be turned into something beneficial," said Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr.
"In the same way that we do with (old) cars, we can dismantle and convert the parts for something else," he added.
Abalos, however, said the proposal to sell the ACMs would all depend on the Supreme Court's final ruling on the machines.
The high court had ordered the 1,991 ACMs returned to Mega Pacific Consortium, whose automation contract with the Comelec was voided for being irregular. The consortium however has already been dissolved and its members have contested before the court efforts by the government to recover the money paid for the machines.
The ACMs, worth about half a million pesos each, are stored at the Comelec's warehouse along UN Avenue in Manila. The election agency spends P3.9 million a year as storage fee for the equipment. (MSN/JMR/Sunnex) |
