Thai’s cabinet of ministers has finalised plans for the first phase of the one tablet per child project, but the announcement on Friday surprised many with a sharp jump in the total cost of the project.
The final price is 2,520 baht ($82) each and the deal was increased to one million units up from 900,000. The final budget is 2.46 billion baht ($80.1 million), up from the latest reported figure of 1.9 billion. No explanation was given for the discrepancy in the numbers.
Part of the increase was for delivery via air to Suvarnabhumi airport instead of via sea. Previously Thai Airways was to provide free freight for the project.
Per Lind, part of the team that had won a similar tablet project in Laos earlier, expressed frustration at how the deal had been reached.
Lind said that his Thai company Yozzo was excluded for not being Chinese as it was to be a G2G deal with the Chinese government.
This is despite his company’s track record as half of the XY consortium that put a 7-inch 3G tablet in the hands of university students in Laos.
Yozzo had put in a bid for a superior product at THB 2,350 (80 USD).
“Now the G2G was canceled, but only the four choices from the Chinese government were considered. That only confused us further. If you ask for a bid, then it should be considered on equal foot with everyone else's. May the best man win,” he said.
Meanwhile, a bidder involved speaking on condition of anonymity said that it was the Finance Minister who had commandeered the project at the last moment and that the ICT Minister had resigned all responsibility from the project.
He said that the ICT Minister Anudith Nakorntap had warned the cabinet of potential problems with the tablets from Scope but they fell on deaf ears.