School buses, vans on the way

By Marconi Calindas
Reporter

After dragging on for about three months due to a protest, the Public School System finally completed the bidding process for new school buses and vans. Students, however, will have to wait for six more months before the fleet actually arrives on the islands.

Education associate commissioner for administrative services David M. Borja said the protest was resolved after one of the winning bidders, the company whose license to sell the buses was questioned, backed out from the competition.

“We were able to close the protest. There were three vendors. One vendor decided to withdraw its offer and that eventually helped us resolve it,” he said.

Immediately after the third company backed out, the PSS immediately awarded the contract to supply three 66-passenger buses and 14 10-passenger vans to the two remaining vendors.

Borja declined to name the winning bidders but promised to name them at a later time. He also declined to say how much the contract is worth.

PSS now needs to wait 180 days for the first batch of new school buses and vans to arrive in the CNMI.

The bidding for the acquisition of the new school buses and vans was supposed to be awarded in December but was stalled by a protest filed by one of the losing bidders.

PSS aims to acquire school buses for Saipan, Tinian, and Rota, but right now, Borja said the additional vehicles would be used for Saipan public schools.

“The fleet here on Saipan has been reduced to eight, so we really need to get at least 15 buses here,” he said.

But he was quick to say that as consolation, three school vans will be shipped to Rota and two vans will go to Tinian public schools.

Currently PSS is still publishing its second bid bulletin for the acquisition of four additional 66-passenger school buses and eight 10-passenger vans, two of which are meant for Rota and one for Tinian.

Borja said the second batch of new school buses and vans would be available beginning next school year.

The additional school buses and vans are federally funded, said Borja. “If we get more funding, especially from the local government, we will be more than happy to get more.”

Students have been complaining of getting to school late or going home late due to the scarce number of public school buses. The buses have to make several trips just to bring home the students or pick them up in the morning.