The Suan Sunantha Rajabhat University’s procurement of tablets worth more than 100 million baht through E-bidding from Applitech Solution Company in the academic years of 2016-17 was done in a transparent fashion with all the related regulations being followed by the university, said Assistant Professor Somdet Rungsrisawat, vice rector for academic affairs of the university.
He insisted that the specifications of the tablets were mentioned in the database of the Comptroller Department and the university had checked the specifications of the successful bidder to its satisfaction that they were fine and correspond with the required specifications.
Thai PBS has closely followed up the university’s procurement of tablets for use by students after complaints from several students that the tablets procured from Applitech Solution were inefficient and did not live up to the required standard.
Thai PBS also suspected that the terms of reference (TOR) of the E-bidding were tailor-made to suit the specifications of a certain bidder.
Since 2015, the Suan Sunantha Rajabhat has been using the Speexx programme available in Application Solution’s tablets in teaching English language to its students. The programme is used to train students in listening, reading, speaking and writing English in accordance with the Education Ministry’s CEFR standard.
Applitech Solution is the only distributer in Thailand of the German-made tablets. Altogether 7,000 tablets were procured from the company by the university in 2017.
According to the Comptroller Department, 25 companies entered the E-bidding staged by the university. Three of them namely Applitech Solution, SPK Centre and Tak Computer Limited Partnership passed the qualification screening, but Applitech Solution won the bid two years in a row at 55 million baht price offer for each bid for the years 2016-17.
Suan Sunantha Rajabhat University plans to procure another 5,000 tablets this academic year with its 46 million baht budget.
