COA questions Navy's P12-million phone bill

Aside from the payment of P671 million for gas products that were not delivered, the Commission on Audit has found another eyebrow-raising expense in the Philippine Navy's books: P12.306 million worth of phone calls in 2011, made by only 180 mobile phones issued to Navy officials.

There is an “absence of adequate monitoring and control in the use of mobile phones by [its] officials and employees,” COA said in its annual audit report of the Navy in 2011.

The state auditor explained that the officials are still using subscription plans from 2007, which are more costly than the plans now available.

“Many of the users exceeded their authorized usage limit of P2,500… the excess billings were simply charged to and paid by the Agency [Navy],” the audit report also read.

“There were personnel or officials who have already retired or transferred to other major services but are still using the mobile subscription of the Philippine Navy,” it added.

Likewise, COA disclosed that rank had little to do with the credit limit assigned to each user: “Users of the same position and/or equal officers are granted different subscriptions and credit limits.”

In the same report, it was revealed that some P671 million worth of gas products that the Navy purchased from Petron had not been delivered to the agency as of December 2011.

Spokesman Lt. Cdr. Gregory Gerald Fabic said that the Navy welcomed COA’s report as part of the checks and balances of the procurement process.

Fabic noted that they will review the guidelines regarding the usage of mobile phones. “We will consider incorporating the recommendations of COA to our guidelines. However, sometimes, we cannot really do away with the excess due to operational requirements during emergency situations,” he told GMA News Online in a phone interview on Wednesday.

“We don’t [allow the] unauthorized use of mobile phones,” the Navy spokesman added.

As for the question of some subscriptions' being in the name of officials who had since retired from the Navy, Fabic explained that the actual phones and lines were transferred to their replacements the names on the subscriptions being changed.

Pending infra projects and cash advances

The state auditor also questioned six infrastructure projects amounting to P121.664 million awarded in 2008 and 2009, which remained unfinished in December 2011 despite extensions.

It noted that the Philippine Navy’s bids and awards committee was lax in the evaluation of the technical and financial capabilities of the contractors.

Fabic, however, said that the projects have been finished, and that the contractors that failed to complete their projects have been blacklisted.

The COA also noted that goods and services worth P289.946 million that were purchased using cash advances should have been procured under a public bidding.

“As the subject goods or items are common and regularly used by the Agency in its day to day operations and have been in the Annual Procurement Plan, the procurement of the same should have passed through competitive bidding,” the state auditor said.

“The Command could have availed of better bargains advantageous to the government,” it added. — BM, GMA News