Ministry of Education corrects error in pre-document for electric bus charging stations acquisition
Santo Domingo.- The Ministry of Education of the Dominican Republic (Minerd), through its General Directorate of Purchasing and Contracting, has corrected an error in the pre-document for the “Acquisition and Installation of Charging Stations for Electric Buses,” under the reference MINERD-CCC-PEEX-2024-0016.
The institution clarified that the budget for acquiring 150 charging stations for electric buses is RD$168,557,478, with an estimated unit price of RD$1,123,716.52.
Initially, the price per charging station was incorrectly listed as RD$337,114,955.52. Minerd has since notified the General Directorate of Purchasing and Contracting of the correction.
The governing body of the pre-university educational system explained that the MINERD-CCC-PEEX-2024-0016 process is a pre-requisite involving specific conditions for purchasing goods and related services, allowing institutions to receive comments and suggestions from interested parties.
They clarified that its publication in the Electronic Public Procurement System (SECP) is not binding for any purchasing process. The objective is to accurately assess the specifications by collecting information on the supplier market.
Minerd also stated that, in compliance with Law 340-06 on Public Purchasing and Contracting, they used the exception process modality. This approach was chosen because the contractual object has a limited market of possible suppliers, meeting one of the conditions established by the legislation to invoke the exception.
Why? This seems to be a very questionable deal. Somebody stands to gain from establishing charging stations at schools. Who? Charging can be done at the bus parks.
It is worthy to mention many schools receive donated electricity. Charging stations at schools would sour the good will of the charity.