Marcos puzzled on Pharmally's P2-B 'under declared' sales

Senator Imee Marcos on Monday questioned over P2 billion worth of under declared sales of the controversial Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation, allegedly involved in the "overpriced" COVID-19 supplies procurement.

During the Senate probe on Department of Health's COVID-19 utilization funds, Marcos asked Pharmally officials regarding the Commission on Audit report that only P7 billion sales were declared despite receiving government contracts of P9.06 billion in 2020.

"What we have on record in COA reports is Pharmally was awarded contracts amounting to P9.06B from April-June 2020. However, the ITR provided shows that only P7.485M sales were declared. There seems to be an under declaration of P2 billion," Marcos pointed out.

"Why wasn’t the full amount of P9 billion declared? Why did you not declare the full amount?" she added.

One of the Pharmally executives, Mohit Dargani, replied that P7.45 billion was declared because this is the total amount of deliveries to the government.

Marcos was again baffled, further asking about the under delivered items.

"This is over a year ago. This was June of 2020, not contracts this year or later last year. How could it not be that they were not delivered?" she asked.

Dargani explained that they received a letter from PS-DBM (Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management) that they should postpone the deliveries.

But he said he could not identify the person who signed the letter authorizing the postponement of the delivery.

These deliveries that were postponed, Dargani said, were test kits. To which, Marcos became more puzzled as the country was "desperate" for test kits in April 2020.

"This is the issue we are unable to tally the amounts declared in the ITR (income tax revenue) versus the total amount of awarded contracts. This is a whopping no small amount P2 billion, this is no small amount," she said.—AOL, GMA News