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May 18th, 2008
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Automakers decry police tender

Critics voice suspicions of tailor-made requirements for new fleet of cruisers

By Victor Velek
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
May 7th, 2008 issue

JAN PŘEROVSKÝ/THE PRAGUE POST
The white-and-green Škodas will start being replaced by the end of this year as part of Interior Ministry's police reforms.
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A recent billion-crown tender for revamping the police’s fleet of cruisers is raising warning sirens from automakers shut out of the bidding process.
Seeing that the white-and-green Škodas that have long constituted the standard police cruiser were growing creaky with age, the Interior Ministry recently launched a tender worth 1.5 billion Kč ($93 million) for 2,800 police cars. To sex the police up a bit, the new cars will be silver and laced with blue and yellow stripes.
With the application deadline now passed, only three manufacturers — the local carmaker Škoda, its mother company Volkswagen and France’s Renault — have qualified for the Interior Ministry’s tender.
Critics of the tender include the Korean automaker Hyundai, which is currently building a massive factory in Moravia. The timeframe set by the ministry was far too short for such a large tender, said Petr Vaněk, Hyundai’s spokesman.
“This was an almost unrealizable time limit for a manufacturer inexperienced in making police vehicles,” he said.
The ministry launched the tender March 26, setting the deadline for April 25. Hyundai and 27 other original applicants gave up on the contract before the time ran out.   
Besides the tough deadline, the police too narrowly defined its specifications for the cars, Hyundai said. The tender’s technical requirements have not been made public.
“Like the vast majority of manufacturers on the Czech market, we weren’t able to meet all the requirements, mainly some equipment and dimension criteria,” said Zdeněk Fořt, Hyundai’s local sales and marketing director.
Although the company considered filing a complaint against the tender, it eventually changed its mind. The deadline complied with public procurement rules, Vaněk admitted.
Hyundai’s sister firm, Kia, also planned to lodge a bid but ran into the same roadblock as majority of its competitors: It asked for the application package, rushed to compile all the requirements and eventually gave up, due to lack of time.
Despite having a model that meets the ministry’s specifications and experiences with renewing police fleets in Slovakia and Poland, Kia had to resign, said Patrik Fanc, the company’s marketing manager.
“Because of the short time span allowed for the tender, we were unable to put together all the required technical documentation,” he said.
“Given the volume of the commission, bidders should have been given more time,” he added. Like Hyundai, however, Kia has not thought of challenging the tender.
Police have dismissed the automakers’ criticism, saying the bid was designed in accordance with the law. The tender was pre-announced on the Internet in January, said David Kubalák of the Police Presidium.
This preliminary notification enabled squeezing the minimum period for submitting bids from 37 to 30 days. As the deadline began to tick away March 27, manufacturers had just 30 days for lodging their offers on April 25.
“We managed to submit a bid. I think that it is quite telling,” said Volkswagen spokesman Jan Klíma, commenting on the protests made by Kia and Hyundai.
Klíma refused to say whether Volkswagen cooperated with Škoda to enhance the bidding chances of the two companies. Škoda declined to speak about the tender and Renault could not be reached for comment.
The supplier of the police cruisers should be known by the beginning of June. The first 700 vehicles should hit the roads by fall, said Kubalák. In the following three years, 2,100, and potentially up to 2,800 more cars will be delivered.
Tailor-made specs       
According to the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, large tenders should have generous deadlines instead of being cut as short as possible.      
However, in the case of the recent police tender, the hasty deadline is less serious a problem than the suspicion of “too specific specifications,” said Martin Holík of the agency’s legal advice section.
“Police cars are not tanks,” Holík said. As police usually use standard vehicles, he continued, the tender should have had loose, rather than strict, technical requirements.
Seeking cars with narrowly specified parameters could mean the tender was tailor-made to suit a particular bidder, Holík said.
The manufacturers will soon be able to pit against each other once again. In a tender to be announced later this year, police will purchase 16 souped-up cars for its highway patrol.   
The ministry’s current car shopping spree is part of a sweeping set of police reforms. Besides rejuvenating the cruiser fleet, Interior Minister Ivan Langer has set about modernizing police stations, a program that has also sparked transparency concerns.
Altogether, the government has earmarked about 3.6 billion Kč for the overhaul of the police force.

Victor Velek can be reached at vvelek@praguepost.com


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