Panama’s Meduca Contracted $28.4 Million for 54,000 Laptops for Teachers but Do They Meet the Requirements?

The purchase of laptops for teachers is one of the processes that came under scrutiny after Lucy Molinar, pictured below, left the Ministry of Education (Meduca).  Molinar said she decided to “step aside” to facilitate the ongoing processes and, in particular, to allow for the investigation and clarification of the computer-related process. “There has been a lot of noise surrounding some issues, particularly regarding computers. I prefer to step aside so that everything can be thoroughly investigated and clarified, and to make way for a new administration,” she stated.  The Comptroller General of the Republic will audit the entire process of purchasing laptops carried out by the Ministry of Education. 

The entity reported that the review will cover the entire process and warned that, if during the audit any element arises “that may have a criminal character”, it will go to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.  For his part, Attorney General Luis Carlos Gómez Rudy pictured below, confirmed that the purchase of the computers is already being investigated, at the request of Molinar, who resigned from her position as Minister of Education.  In that context, Contract S-04-2026, signed by Meduca with IS Group, SA, establishes the acquisition of 54,000 laptops for teachers for $28.48 million, including tax.  The equipment is identified in the contract as LIBY, model N18-14C, and the document establishes a deadline of 60 days for its delivery. 

The contracted amount equates to approximately $527 per computer, including ITBMS (Panamanian sales tax). This figure represents the total contract value and does not mean that the full $28.48 million has been disbursed.  The contract stipulates that payment will be made in a single installment after the complete delivery of the equipment and once any defects detected have been corrected. To authorize payment, the National Directorate of Information Technology of the Ministry of Education (Meduca) was required to submit a “Satisfactory Receipt” document. 

The payment will also be subject to a 50% ITBMS withholding and must be made within a maximum period of 60 business days, starting from the approval and acceptance of the required documentation.  The delivery process has already begun, and in the first few days, more than 1,800 teachers nationwide had received computers as pictured above, according to the Ministry of Education (Meduca). These laptops are part of a larger order of 54,000 laptops purchased from IS Group, SA, whose technical specifications include requirements related to artificial intelligence processing.  With the first computers already delivered to teachers, a question arises: do the computers correspond to the technical characteristics that Meduca established in the purchase process?

Lucy Molinar, former Minister of Education; Luis Carlos Gómez Rudy, Attorney General of the Nation; and Anel Flores, Comptroller General of the Republic. 

Computers with Artificial Intelligence Requirements.

During the bidding process, the characteristics and technical requirements established for the computers were certified on three occasions by the National Authority for Government Innovation (AIG), as stated in the process documentation. The specifications stipulate, among other requirements, a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) of at least 40 TOPS, a six-core or higher processor, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage.  The NPU is a component designed to accelerate certain artificial intelligence tasks directly on the computer. The tender also stipulates that the computers must be capable of performing certain artificial intelligence functions offline, as well as vision and voice processing.  These are requirements established in the bidding process. However, the documentation reviewed so far does not allow us to determine whether the specific configuration of the contracted equipment meets each of them.

RFID, Barcodes, and Personalization.

Meduca’s requirements also include mechanisms to identify and track each computer.  Each piece of equipment must have an RFID tag and a serial barcode for unique identification and to facilitate inventory tasks and technical support tracking.  The serial number and barcode must be engraved by screen printing or laser and accompanied by a label permanently attached to the equipment.  The document also establishes specific physical characteristics for the computers intended for teachers.  The top cover must be blue and the Meduca logo must appear on the cover, under the keyboard and in the BIOS.

The list of charges establishes the images and positions that should be placed on the laptops delivered to Meduca.

Regarding the operating system, the document establishes conditions for authenticity, updates, compatibility with Microsoft 365 and the licensing required by Meduca through the Shape the Future agreement.

Four-Year Warranty and Support.

The contract includes 1,461 days of warranty and technical support, equivalent to four years.  The warranty must be provided on-site and cover parts and labor.  The document establishes a maximum of five business days to start the repair and 10 business days to repair or replace the equipment.  The contract also incorporates Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to address incidents according to their level of urgency.  For a critical failure, the maximum established technical response time is between one and four business hours. For a medium-urgent incident, it is four to eight hours, and for a low-urgent incident, it is 24 to 72 business hours.

Copy of the supply contract signed by the Minister of Education, Lucy Molinar, and the legal representative of IS Group, SA, Hamzi Moussa El Reda Jaafar, endorsed by the Comptroller General of the Republic.

Annex 1, Which Does Not Appear in the Revised Copy.

Contract S-04-2026 refers to Annex 1: Proponent’s Technical Data Sheet for Line 2, corresponding to the technical data sheet submitted by the proponent for the contracted line.  However, this document does not appear in the copy of the contract reviewed and published in Panama Compra, which concludes on page 16 with the signatures and endorsement of the then Minister of Education, Lucy Molinar; the Comptroller, Anel Flores; and the company representative, Hamzi Moussa El Reda Jaafar.  The absence of Annex 1 prevents a complete comparison between the specifications established by Meduca in the Charge Sheet and the specific configuration of the LIBY N18-14C computers identified in the contract. 

To complete that verification, it would be necessary to review the technical specifications submitted by the proponent and determine if it includes, among other requirements, an NPU of at least 40 TOPS, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB of storage and a processor with six cores or more, in addition to the processing capabilities of artificial intelligence, vision and voice, the identification mechanisms and the other conditions established in the tender.  What has been documented so far is that the Ministry of Education (Meduca) contracted 54,000 laptops for teachers for $28.48 million, identified in the contract as LIBY, model N18-14C, and that the equipment has already begun to be delivered nationwide. 

What cannot be verified from the available contract copy is whether the configuration presented by the proponent meets all the technical specifications required by the Ministry of Education (Meduca). To determine this, it is necessary to review Annex 1.  The Comptroller General’s Office will audit the entire acquisition process, and the Public Prosecutor’s Office is already investigating the purchase. Reviewing the bidder’s technical specifications will be key to determining whether the equipment contracted and delivered meets the conditions established in the procurement process.  While these investigations are underway, the new Minister of Education, Ventura Vega, has indicated that he will continue with the process for a new purchase of laptops for students and that he will collaborate with the authorities in reviewing the acquisition of laptops for teachers.