New grant to temporarily solve bus shortage

By Marconi Calindas
Reporter

A new grant from the Federal Transit Authority was recently provided to the Public School System, a move seen as alleviating the islands’ acute shortage of school buses.

A bid came out this week in newspapers announcing that PSS is purchasing four more buses in addition to eight 10-passenger capacity vans.

“This is another opportunity for us to buy buses and vans,” said associate commissioner David M. Borja.

The bid bulletin will run for 30 days before short-listed qualified bidders are announced.

PSS did not state in the bulletin about a pre-bid conference for the second bidding, since Borja said they made sure that the bulletin clearly stated the requirements for suppliers or vendors who will participate.

“Our specs are very detailed,” Borja said. “Apart from the required buses, they [bidders] must meet the federal motor vehicle safety standards.”

Borja said that, if the buses do not meet these basic requirements, the vendors should no longer pursue the bidding process, since procurement regulations clearly state that participants must have valid business licenses.

He said the grant would go a long way in solving the school bus shortage problem of the PSS.

“We’re still short of school buses on Saipan, Rota, and Tinian,” he said.

The latest federal grant was given to PSS since the first federal grant was put on hold due to a protest raised by a non-winning bidder.

“The company that is protesting is already talking to their lawyer. We have basically compiled our response to that and PSS’ attorney is reviewing it and would finalize the result at the end of this month or first week of February,” said Borja.

The pending protest is for the acquisition of three 66-passenger capacity school buses and 14 10-passenger capacity vans.

With the arrival of the new grant, PSS can now proceed with the purchase of additional vehicles since its original acquisition plan to refurbish its aging school bus fleet was stymied by the bidding controversy.

Until the first bidding is solved, PSS will not be able to spend the first grant.

PSS was supposed to get the its new batch of school buses last Dec. 2004 but due to the protest on the bidding, public school students continue to have difficulty in their day-to-day commuting.

Currently, PSS has a total of only 11 school buses, but only nine are operational since the other two needs maintenance.

In all, the nine buses of the PSS serve 15 public schools on Saipan, excluding special schools. PSS had 20 buses in 1994.