| MTS does not like the parliamentary order of the Bee Line company Increasing competition between the capital's leading cellular operators was also reflected in the receipt of large orders from government organizations. The VimpelCom companies - the Bee Line brand and Mobile Telesystems (MTS) - last week took turns announcing the fulfillment of large orders for the Duma and the Moscow government, without denying themselves the pleasure of making claims against each other.
The reason for MTS's disappointment was the message from VimpelCom that it had received a Duma order for servicing 450 deputies. According to MTS press secretary Eva Prokofieva, this came as a surprise to the company, since any government order requires an open tender. “We have not received any official documents from the Duma about holding such a tender,” she emphasizes. -- It can hardly be considered a tender that the meeting of business management representatives to which representatives of MTS, Bee Line and the Moscow Megafon were invited by telephone in mid-October. We viewed this meeting as a preliminary conversation about servicing State Duma employees. At that time there was no talk of receiving an order to serve deputies.” In turn, VimpelCom Public Relations Director Mikhail Umarov emphasized that this was not a simple meeting, but a consideration of operators’ proposals by a special competition commission, which clearly formulated the conditions of this order: in particular, the cost of telephone handsets should not exceed $100. , and payment for services must be made on credit. Probably, the latter circumstance was not in favor of MTS, which does not practice a credit system of settlements with subscribers, Mr. Umarov believes.
Advisor to the general director of the Sonic Duo company (Megafon brand) Roman Prokolov also denies the existence of a tender for a deputy order: “There was no official invitation to participate in the tender.” At the same time, the company does not intend to take any action on its part in this regard. “These issues are regulated by law, so they must be resolved by the relevant authorities,” says Mr. Prokolov.
Meanwhile, MTS is more aggressive. The Duma, according to the company, should have held a tender in accordance with the provisions of the federal law “On competitions for placing orders for the supply of goods, performance of work, and provision of services for state needs,” which came into force on January 1. Therefore, MTS intends to appeal to the Duma for appropriate clarifications, Ms. Prokofieva said.
The representative of VimpelCom emphasizes that the law on competitions came into force only this year, while the entire procedure for the Duma competition ended last year. The order agreement was signed between the State Duma Administration and VimpelCom in November, and the first handsets were delivered in December.
Mr. Umarov also did not fail to recall the absence of any tender to fulfill the order of the Moscow government for equipping and servicing navigation systems for urban transport and other capital facilities. This order was received by the subsidiary Mobile Teleposition Systems (MTS P) without any competition. The decision to create and maintain such navigation systems was made by the Moscow government in July last year. The total amount of project financing in 2002-2004. will amount to 1 billion rubles. The Bee Line company, which also has positioning services, sent its proposals for participation in this capital project. However, in November, she received a refusal from the Department of Transport and Communications of the Moscow Government, which clearly stated that MTS P had been chosen as the project executor, Mr. Umarov said. He also emphasized that cellular operators participate in dozens of competitions for various organizations, so Bee Line is not particularly upset about not participating in the mentioned Moscow project, although it is much larger than the parliamentary project. Serving the inhabitants of Okhotny Ryad is rather an image project, which is why it has won such close attention of the MTS company, Mr. Umarov emphasized. Nadezhda KOSTYUK |
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