7. PRE –BVR PROCESSES 7.1 BVR Tender Processes The procurement process for Biometric Voter Registration Kits commenced under a public tender jointly flighted by ZEC and UNDP in December 2016. Over 50 firms initially expressed interest in the solicitation, but only 12 submitted bids within the stipulated timeframe by 17 January 2017. A team comprising officials from ZEC and UNDP reviewed the proposals, with ZEC inviting three companies to participate in site validation tests. One of the three companies, ZETES from Belgium, withdrew from the process for reasons that ZEC did not share publicly, or with electoral stakeholders including CSO observers. The Laxton Group Limited from China and Dermalog Identification Systems from Germany were the two companies left in the bidding process. 7.2 BVR Site Validation Tests ZEC staged the BVR Site Validation Tests from 21 -26 April 2017. The processes involved stakeholder briefing30, power-point presentations from bidders on how their kits (hardware and software) met the specification in the ZEC-UNDP bid documents, lab tests by ZEC's Technical Assessors, Training of Data Operators (data capturers), field Tests at two Schools (urban and rural) and a series of shock and waterproof test. The table below shows the schedule of events for the Biometric Voter Registration Kits Site Validation Test. Table 2: BVR Kits Site Validation Test Event Observed Observer Briefing Presentations by Bidders Laboratory Test (Hardware & software checks Training of voter registration operators Field Test (mock BVR registration) Field Test (mock BVR registration) Date (s) 20 April 2017 21 April 2017 22 April 2017 Venue ZEC HQ ZEC HQ ZEC HQ Time 11:00 - 12:00 08:30 – 16:00 09:00 – 16:00 23 April 2017 24 April 2017 25 April 2017 09:00 – 15:00 08:30 – 16:00 08:30 – 16:00 Field Test (shock and waterproof tests) 26 April 2017 Harare Polytechnic Mabvuku High School Murape Sec School – Seke ZEC HQ 08:15 – 11:00 30 ZEC accredited one observer from the following institutions: Government Departments, ZEC’s cooperating partners, Independent Commissions, Media, CSOs and political parties (9 representatives from the ZEC-Political Party Committee). 31