A flood of bids for an intense electoral year. Indra is facing the wave of contracting processes for its services to scrutinize the processes of the autonomous communities. And he does it with the one that leads the Ministry of the Interior, for the municipal and general elections, still ‘bogged down’ in the absence of the formal award after the different technical problems experienced in recent months. The company chaired by Marc Murtra is facing this process practically alone, in the absence of the Catalan technology Scytl as a great rival.
In the last few weeks a handful of bidding processes have been launched for the different elections. Asturias, Aragon, Murcia, the Canary Islands, Cantabria and the Balearic Islands. Together they have a budget, including taxes, of up to 7.5 million euros. Most reflect on their conditions as the deadline to deliver the final offers of this month of January. Deadlines couldn’t be tighter. The comics will take place at the end of next May. Almost all of them are by open procedure and not urgent (negotiated without publicity) as a large part of the contracts were executed during the pandemic period.
The case of the Balearic Islands is curious. At the end of December the procedure was launched, but after having passed the entire period for submitting offers, they have not received any and have had to declare the tender void at the contracting table. Indra did not present his credentials, who insists that with the renewed one that must now be executed, they will participate. As La Información has learned, the company’s technological division (Minsait) will try to participate in all possible processes.
There are two other relevant regions that have been more far-sighted and have completed the bidding for the contract. One is the Valencian Community, where Indra will keep the contract for 1.56 million euros, practically the amount in which the tender came out. The other is Madrid which, despite the fact that it held regional elections in 2021, will return to the polls in May of this year. The Community will pay the group, which was the only one to present, a total of 2.5 million for all the work in technical assistance for the computerization of the data capture, processing and dissemination system.
All this barrage of processes, which will have to be completed with others in Extremadura, Navarra or Castilla-La Mancha, comes with a much more relevant process that barely four months after the start of the municipal elections is still ‘stuck’. This is the framework agreement entered into by the Ministry of the Interior for the scrutiny of both the local elections and the general elections in December. The last problem that arose was related to the presentation of documentation by Indra.
Indra has won the contracts for the regional elections in the Community of Madrid and in the Valencian Community for more than 4 million between them
At the end of last October, Interior authorized the reopening of the deadline for submitting offers to the file until November 8. The reason? Indra stated that after two failed attempts to present the proposal through the state contracting platform, he proceeded to present it in person at the General Registry of the department directed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska. It was not the only technical incident. In the middle of that month, the Contracting Board had declared the tender void, after the documentation had not been properly submitted by the technology company.
loneliness of indra
The election procedure, which has not yet been definitively closed with the award to Indra -the only company that has presented its credentials-, also had another problem in September. The ministry annulled the first procedure that it launched three months earlier. The Executive admitted an “error” in the publication. It must be taken into account that this is one of the most sensitive and relevant contracts -because of the work they include-. The deadlines are tighter to have everything ready before the first electoral litmus test in May.
The semi-public company faces the process as the favorite, due to the lack of large competitors. For years it exercised a monopoly in Spain -after which the American giant IBM led-, until Scytl landed and planted some battle. But the termination of the previous framework contract – which ended in 2022 – to the Catalan company for breaches was a blow. Minsait has been left practically alone. Only Ibermática remains in the Basque Country, as the ‘traditional’ winner of this contract in the region, and some smaller ‘players’ such as Odec.
