Yesterday, the police cancelled a prestigious tender to build a complex command and control system worth PLN 120m. Several days earlier, the same had happened to command and control system for the police worth PLN 40m. In both cases, the blame was on the police. The mistakes were funny – the conditions in the tender were illegal. Police have PLN 4.5 billion for modernization. The funds must be spent till December 2009.
„We also are wondering where these mistakes com from and whether it’s a coincidence. How can police publish different announcements for one tender in two different places? Someone had to change it on purpose”, one of the policemen connected with the tenders said.
IT companies have their explanations.
“Maybe there is a company which wants the tender to fail because it hopes to get the order without a tender or it hopes to get contract to modernize the software? Or maybe someone wanted the money to go for other things than IT systems”, a representative of an IT company wondered.
There were similar cases of cancelling tenders in the past. Police have
cancelled a tender to buy 861 PCs and printers worth over PLN 3m because they
had forgotten to state the requirements in the announcement. There were wrong
criteria in an announcement to buy 8,500 bullet proof vests worth EUR 1.9m.
Before, the tender to buy electronic training support system was canceled. More
and more tenders are delayed because there are reasonable protests after they
are announced. In August, the court decided that police have to cancel a tender
to buy cars worth PLN 400m.