COA questions Office of Civil Defense transactions worth P290M

The Commission on Audit has questioned transactions the Office of Civil Defense entered into in 2012, totaling P290.29 million, that were seemingly made to look like they conformed with government regulations. The sum, taken out of the OCD’s P530 million Quick Response Fund, was used to purchase “non-food relief items” using “negotiated procurement(s).” This is allowed under RA 9184 or the Procurement Reform Law but only for small transactions of less than P500,000 or for emergency supplies. Also, the purchases were made under an “emergency mode of procurement,” as this was allowed in cases of imminent danger to life or property during a State of Calamity, and provided for under Section 53.2 of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of RA 9184. COA, however, noted that the purchases were broken up so that none went over the P500,000 limit and remained classified as “small value procurements”. The OCD thus circumvented a requirement to post an invitation for suppliers on the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) for amounts greater than P500,000. Auditors also observed that similar items were bought during the same period, but split into two or more “requisition/purchase orders”. Furthermore, the same POs showed the purchases were made through the same supplier, who was not identified. In other instances, several purchases were for the same items but through different suppliers. These schemes were observed for purchases in February 2012 totaling P27.35 million; March, P28.44 million; and April, P35.43 million. Meanwhile, purchases for the months of January (P16.73 million), August (P75.14 million), November (P34.19 million) and December (P73.01 million), were found to have conformed with Department of National Defense – Order No. 76 (2005), which limited the OCD administrator's approving authority to contracts amounting P5 million or less. For bigger sums, the contract would have to be handled by the DND Bids and Awards Committee. But COA noted that purchases during these months had various violations including absence of abstract of quotations of prices; contact numbers of suppliers were not provided on quotations given to the audit team thereby preventing verification; several suppliers gave the same addresses; incomplete purchase requests/orders; POs were pre-dated; missing list of recipients or end-users and lack of acknowledgment/proof of receipt. The COA has required the OCD to submit all the missing support documents for the questioned transactions and a written explanation why the procurements were broken down into smaller amounts. OCD officials could not be reached for comment as of posting time. — DVM, GMA News