Secretary General of the Parliament Adrian Albu today gave a news briefing on the implementation of the e-Parliament information system, including e-vote. He made specifications on the procedure of procurement of tablet computers for MPs.
Adrian Albu made a summing up of the concerned project. He informed that the e-Parliament system implied more stages, including: development and implementation of the soft; electronic management of the legislative process; working out of a new website of the parliament and the integration of e-vote, for which it is necessary to buy computer tablets. This information system will give possibility of transparentizing the process of managing the legislative materials and documents in electronic format. “In this way, we will become more advanced, more saving and friendlier to the environment,” the official noted.
As a result of the tender, the company Nextsense has become winner and, respectively, developer of the soft and the value of the contract is of 433,917 dollars, of which the sum provided through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) by the government of Sweden is of more than 328,000 dollars.
”Now, we are at the stage of buying tablet computers. Given that the purchasing of tablets is not part of the grant and our insistent attempts to identify a donor due to cover the spending related to their procurement have unfortunately failed, we have to find another solution,” Albu said.
Thus, without attracting additional resources from the state budget, the Secretariat managed to identify the means within the limit of the resources available, including thanks to considerable savings – at the expense of the thermal agent, giving up plastic bottles, setting cheaper soft.
On 12 November 2019, an open tender on buying tablets took place, with the delivery term established for 24 December 2019. Yet, the economic agent did not meet the term and, while taking into account the guarantee of implementation offered by the economic agent, its openness and receptiveness, decision-makers ruled for the company not to be included in the black list, as the contracting authority did not have damages (additional expenses) and its work was not hit. “Moreover, the procrastination occurred not because of the winning agent, but because of the producer,” Albu said.
The parliament’s secretary general asked the MPs and the media not to make reference, in the context of this subject, to “business interests” of the parliament’s leadership. “The Secretariat is absolutely independent in taking decisions and none member of the working group on the system’s implementation is member of any party. It is important to underline that the tablets are to be purchased not for the lawmakers – they are bought for the plenum and will remain here not only for the tenth legislative period, but also for the next ones,” Albu stressed.
The secretary general reiterated that the computer tablets were necessary for a good management of the electronic voting and of the legislation process on the whole; they will allow new savings for paper, scanners and toners, etc. “The true experts regard this prospect in the perspective and know that the investments will be recovered in 5-7 years,” Albu added.
