The Road Transport Department (RTD) has denied claims that suppliers of the Automatic Enforcement System (AES) were appointed without issuing tenders and done in haste.

Its director-general Datuk Solah Mat Hassan said, the tenders were made carefully and transparently and spanning almost eight years, before the AES started operating in 14 locations from Sept 23.

Solah said to get a picture and ensure the effectiveness of the AES, senior officers of the Ministry of Transport visited countries using the system, in 2005.

"The government was briefed on the outcome of the visit. It agreed to implement AES and set up a steering committee aided by five work committees," he said in a statement yesterday.

Based on the report of the visits, Solah said the government agreed in 2006 to offer nine companies to take part in the tender process.

The companies were Commercial Circle (M) Sdn Bhd (ATES Sdn Bhd) (with robots from Germany); Beta Tegap Sdn Bhd (with Redflex from Australia); TESS CAPITAL Sdn Bhd (with Poltaich from Australia); Tricubes Berhad (with SAGEM from France); Precision Hawk Eye (M) Sdn Bhd (with Sianco Traficco from Spain), Acropolis Avenue Sdn Bhd (from China); Neza Teguh Sdn Bhd (with Sensys from Sweden); Tenix Solutions Pte Ltd (with Tenix from Australia and Hyundai Information Technology from Korea.

Solah said Tenix Solutions Pte Ltd and Hyundai Information Technology Co Ltd did not submit technical proposals while seven technology suppliers did so.

"After a technical evaluation, only six joined live demonstrations. The tests took more than a month in Putrajaya, Shah Alam and the Guthrie Highway from June to July 2007.

Solah said only Redflex Traffic System Ptd Ltd represented by Beta Tegap Sdn Bhd and Robot Visual System represented by ATES Sdn Bhd passed the technical qualifications of the Technical Committee.

"After a series of negotiation between the government and the companies, the government on Dec 9, 2011 signed an agreement with the two companies," he added.