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Thursday, September 22, 2005
National govt. inefficiency blamed for ‘illegal’ releases
The disbursement of “illegal” honorarium made by 19 towns in Cebu to members of its bids and awards committee (BAC) is a result of national government inefficiency that led to confusion among local government units, said Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia.
Garcia believes there was no malice on the part of mayors in releasing honorarium to their BAC members, something that was later disallowed by the Commission on Audit (COA).
In the first place, Garcia said, the mayors may just have been as surprised of the COA findings because Republic Act (RA) 9184, the new law on procurement that provides for the new composition of BAC, excludes local chief executives from the procurement body’s membership.
What happened was that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) issued a circular imposing a deadline for the creation of a new BAC in the last quarter of 2003, when RA 9184 was implemented.
Because of the circular, mayors issued their own executive orders for the creation of the new BAC, quoting the compensation section of RA 9184, which states that BAC members can receive an honorarium of “not more than 25 percent of their monthly basic salary, subject to the availability of funds.”
Refund
All new BACs were already constituted and their compensation provided for, when the budget department issued another circular in 2004 for the guidelines of the release of the honorarium.
The guidelines state that the honorarium must be taken only from the BAC’s collection from sale of bid forms and other documents. The new circular also states that only 50 percent of the collection should be set aside as honorarium.
The budget department, as well as the COA, should take this circumstance of an issuance of guidelines much after the implementation of the law into consideration when treating the issue, she added.
“This is really a case of government inefficiency again. They implemented a law without having the guidelines first...Perhaps it is also appropriate for everybody to read back RA 9184, the budget circular issued months later and for all entities to consider what happened in that light,” Garcia said.
Explanation
The governor said that this explanation could be used as basis for the mayorsto ask COA to reconsider its order of a refund.
“But local chief executives should also have been on the lookout for this. It was a judgment call, if the amount is not unconscionable even if the law allows it,” she added.
In Capitol’s case, Garcia issued last year a memorandum cutting down the honorarium of BAC members. The 25 percent ceiling that was then used as basis because of RA 9184 would have given members as much as P5,000 or P6,000 a month, but she ordered that honorarium for BAC members must not exceed P2,000 each.
Mayors can correct their executive orders for the creation of the BAC, which is constituted every start of the year, said the governor. (JPM)
(September 22, 2005 issue)
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