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Ministry of Justice renewed contract with Claro for electronic shackles
Posted On 12 Nov 2018
Ecuadornews:
The Ministry of Justice awarded a new contract to the operator Claro (Conecel) sothat this company continues to provide the communication and internet service,which allows the tracking of the electronic shackles that are installed tothose processed by the justice as the former secretary of Communication RafaelCorrea, Fernando Alvarado, accused of embezzlement and who got rid of thisdevice about 20 days ago.
In the award, which was signed on October 31, it is detailed that this service was contracted through a special regime process (directly), for a term of one year and for an amount of $ 591,997, in accordance with the records of the Public Procurement Service (Sercop).
The Ministry of Justice renewed the contract with Claro after six months of analyzing a possible change to the state provider CNT (National Telecommunications Corporation) to comply with a ministerial agreement that ordered the selection of a public company to provide this service. This is indicated by documents from that institution that warned that the transfer to CNT would mean “coverage problems that would lead to blind areas, that is, without monitoring”, as it does not have telephone coverage similar or greater to that of Claro.
Until August, Conecel (Claro) led the number of mobile signal transmission antennas with 8,921, followed by Otecel (Movistar) with 5,727 and CNT with 2,396, according to the Telecommunications Regulation and Control Agency (Arcotel).
However, in a CNT communication sent to the Ministry of Justice, on October 18, the state company reports on its operational capacity: “Regarding the technical and operational viability of CNT EP, we would comply 100% with all requirements. ..”
This is the third contract that the Ministry of Justice grants to Claro to keep its monitoring system operational, which until last September, tracked 2,627 people, according to a report from this institution, which also details the breakdown of 1,024 devices. The first contract was signed on April 13, for a term of 6 months and at a cost of $ 296,000, and then a complementary contract was signed, which does not detail the amount in the records of this entity or the Public Procurement portal.
The monitoring system, which includes some 4,000 tracking devices and a computer platform, was purchased by Ecuador from China National Electronics Import & Export Corporation (Ceiec) at a cost of $ 13.7 million, in August 2016.
Itsoperation is flawed, according to an audit by the Comptroller General thatdetermined a loss to the State of approximately $ 9.5 million. (I)
